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 #1835856


Goldie
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 Watching them eat...

I’ve had two golden geckos (one male, one female) for 3 years now and since I have had them I have not seen them eat once!
As soon as I put the crickets in they go and hide in the logs or under the floor bedding so it takes longer for them to find them... and they don’t seem interested. My geckos have never made an attempt to go for the crickets when I put them in.

Any ideas of how I can make them interested in their food so that I can finally see them eating?



08/19/08  03:48am

 #1836072


KrazyKelli
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   Message To: Goldie   In reference to Message Id: 1835856


 Watching them eat...

Crickets are always going to be a pain in this regard. I find they’re easier to manage if you put the goldies on a dirt substrate (like peat moss) instead of a bark mix as the crickets can’t hide in the dirt. The crickets are also easier to find if you coat them with the calcium before throwing in - as they’ll show up white against the dark substrate. A third thing to do is to put the crickets in before you go to bed, between 8 and 10, as golden geckos are nocturnal.

To watch my goldie eat, I cup-trained him. It’s as simple as it sounds. Plastic cup with smooth sides. In it I’ll put mealworms or superworms (one superworm at a time, though. They’re big.) Then after I get my hand out of the tank, my goldie will turn near black and hunt the cup. Or he’ll be normal color, hunt the cup, and after getting the worm get all dark and cranky. Honestly, I think it’s not the lizard getting upset so much as camoflague.



08/19/08  12:55pm

 #1836934


Goldie
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   Message To: KrazyKelli   In reference to Message Id: 1836072


 Watching them eat...

Thanks KrazyKelli for the help and advice...
I have a dish which has a thick ridge around the top to stop crickets/mealworms from escaping and I have tried using this in the past but the crickets still seem to escape.
I have a separate empty tank... do you think that I could put the geckos in there with some crickets when I feed them so that the crickets can’t hide? Or do you think this will upset the geckos?
If I just leave the crickets in their normal tank, they hide and end up growing too big so that the geckos can’t eat them... and they get noisy!



08/20/08  06:28am

 #1837148


KrazyKelli
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   Message To: Goldie   In reference to Message Id: 1836934


 Watching them eat...

Handling the geckos at all will stress them out considerably, so it wouldn’t make sense to take them out for feeding - they’d be too stressed to eat.

The dish you described is for mealworms only, and not crickets. that’s why the crickets are jumping out. If you pop the back legs off the crickets, it should keep them from jumping around so much.

I just heard that Petsmart is selling mealworms again; yay.

Seriously, try superworms. They’re easy to keep (so long as you provide them a potato or something to chew on and some oats), and you only have to feed one for an entire meal. They’re also a wee bit fatty if fed too much, so that would be good for the female when she starts laying eggs this fall.
08/20/08  01:16pm


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