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Question for all.

I feed all my roaches my Roach gutload. My roach eating geckos are the largest I have. My largest fat-tail male is 140g and largest female is 104g. My leos are also up there with the largest being 114g. Some of my mealworm eaters are also over 100g.

What species of roach were you feeding? I feed mine orange heads, discoids and lobsters. My discoid colony is not quite established but the geckos nail them. Some geckos like a certain specie more than others so it depends on the individual animal.
 
I've noticed that my Leos who like the roaches seem to be heavier this time of year then those who are crickets eaters.
I had thought about going to an only mealworm diet before I discovered roaches. My only thought on this is maybe it is a case of there being something wrong with those particular mealies? Are they always from the same distributor or do you raise your own?
I hope this works out for you!!! Good luck!
 
Thank you for all of your replys.I will be doing some testing over the next few years and we will see what comes of this.
 
Jodi, it will be interesting to see what the outcome will be...... It is good to experiment yourself and not always take the word of others..... Please remember to keep us updated on you testing..... Good luck with everything....
 
Jodi, your not getting your crickets from "THREE MILE ISLAND CRICKET FARM" are you?

Naawww just kidding!
hey I was wondering if you ever supplament your breeders with pinky's?
 
hmmm...

Many may remember this, but last year I switched from using Miner-All and Rep-Cal Herptivite to T-Rex Sandfire Foods Cricket Balancer, and had ZERO viable eggs for over two months! It wasn't until I made that correlation and switched back to my original regime that I started to have fertile eggs again!

Well, I know it was the switch in supplements that caused this problem, and yet I have spoken to other breeders who use nothing but the T-Rex product and have had no problems whatsoever! (go figure...)

Perhaps it is the sudden change altogether that would wreck havoc on the geckos' metabolic functions? Should I have mixed a little of the new in with the old and gradually switched? Maybe you could try to feed mealworms once a week and crickets the rest of the time, increasing the amount of mealworms over a longer period until you have them switched over completely?

I know that switching a dog's food or a child's formula all at once does a real number on their GI systems, and that is the reason it is advised to gradually switch over to a different product. It might make sense that the absorbtion of nutrients would do the same.
 
I think Marcia has a real good point. Maybe the sudden change in diet upset their metabolism causing problems with egg develpment. How long before you started your breeding season did you switch over to mealworms Jodi?

I tried switching over to mealworms a couple of years back. Some of my leos ate them, some of them wouldn't even look at them. Plus I found out I was very illergic to the mealworm dust :slamit: I hate crickets, they're a pain, but in my opinion are about the best nutrionally among other reasons.
 
I do not try very hard with pikies.All of my geckos were doing just great on crickets,but i switched a few to mealworms to try them out then i started to get bad eggs.The geckos that were left on crickets are doing just fine laying eggs keeping good body weight.
 
I noticed at some point in the thread someone mentioned the hormones used in giant mealworms as being a possible problem...they wouldn't be, they are insect hormones and will not affect anything the body of a non-insect (and probably not even in a lot of other insects). Hormones tend to be species specific...for example there is a human growth hormone, an equine growth hormone, a bovine growth hormone, an ovine growth hormone....etc. etc. etc... Hormones from mealworms would have no effect on a leo whatsoever. As far as actual causes....my guess would be bad batch of mealies or the sudden diet change...but I definitely couldn't tell you for sure other than that it would not be mealie hormones.
 
Jodi I got two bells from you lst year (both are doing great) and they have been given nothing but mealworms since I've had them. When I bred them last summer, both produced well.
-Alice
 
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