Picky Eater! Any Suggestions.

My three year old male leopard gecko has become quite the picky eater. He really only wants to eat mealworms on a regular basis. He hates crickets. He will not eat a cricket if its right in front of him. I have tricked him into eating some prepared foods by mixing them in a small bowl with his meal worms. Maybe once every six month I offer him a f/t pinkie and he loves those. He is as healthy as can be and is actually quite huge. About 10 and a half inches in length.

I am going today to get some wax worms and some more crickets to try.
Any suggestions on what else I can offer him?

Sure a varied diet is a better source of balanced nutrition. But there are many top breeders that only feed mealies. If they are properly gut loaded and dusted he should be fine. In my opinion and from what I have researched.

If you absolutely want him to eat a crickets. Scent it with a mealie or wax worm by rubbing some guts of the crickets. Gross but it works.

Or you can increase the frequency of pinkies or try silkworms or since he is very large a small hornworm though both a more difficult to come by and more expensive.

Good luck.

Originally Posted by chimpkin

My three year old male leopard gecko has become quite the picky eater. He really only wants to eat mealworms on a regular basis. He hates crickets. He will not eat a cricket if its right in front of him. I have tricked him into eating some prepared foods by mixing them in a small bowl with his meal worms. Maybe once every six month I offer him a f/t pinkie and he loves those. He is as healthy as can be and is actually quite huge. About 10 and a half inches in length.

I am going today to get some wax worms and some more crickets to try.
Any suggestions on what else I can offer him?

Doesn't sound like that bad of a problem to me. A nice healthy leo that eats regularly, even if it's not crickets, is always a good thing. Some breeders raise their leos on mealworms only, and have had seemingly good success.

I wouldn't worry about it too much, you can keep offering crickets and hope that he starts to take them too. But I wouldn't worry about it too much as long as he's not losing weight, or refusing mealworms.

I agree, I wouldn't worry too much about that guy. He sounds very healthy. I think the silkworms are a good idea, though they tend to be expensive. You can also try roaches. If he won't eat the crix, I wouldn't keep tryting to force him and wasting your money. You could also increase the pinkies to every couple of months. And have you tried superworms? He sounds big enough to eat those nasty suckers

I have one baby that won't eat mealies and 1 that won't eat crickets and one that would eat a sweatsock if i let him. i guess appetites and food preferances vary

Every leopard gecko is different. I've heard about tons one week liking feeder A then the next scoffing at it and turning it's nose up. Then there are some that eat everything like a vaccum. It all depends. You also have feeders you can get such as:

Roaches (tons of kinds)
Superworms (Less shell then mealies, but bigger. A lot bigger.)
Silkworms (Expensive but soft bodied and very good)
Butterworms (a tad fatty, soft bodied, no food)
Phoenix worms (Lots of calcium, no food)
Hornworms (Full grown to like 3 inches in a week or two, very expensive)
Waxworms (Fatty fatty treats I only perfer to use once or twice a month)

Uhh. That's all I can think of right now.