​The Best Diet for a Crested Gecko

As reptile owners, we often find ourselves wanting to mimic similar husbandry and diets that our pets would receive if they were living in the wild. So, why don’t we do the same for our crested geckos?

It is very common for crestie owners to feed their geckos solely pre-mixed, powdered foods. Although these geckos will likely live long and healthy lives, if we look at what crested geckos eat in the wild, it makes us understand what may keep our geckos happiest. In the wild, crested geckos eat mostly live bugs along with fruits, seeds and remains of other prey. With that being said, powdered diets are an amazing way to give your gecko a variety of flavors and smells but they do best when used with live bugs and fresh fruits.

Crested geckos can eat a plethora of different feeder bugs. Some of these bugs include crickets, roaches, locusts, snails, butterworms, silkworms and wax worms. The bugs that you feed should be no bigger than the space between your gecko’s eyes. This is a good rule to follow to avoid any chance of your gecko choking on their meals. Another good treat in a gecko’s diet is fresh fruits. Some good fruits that can be mashed up and offered are mangos, bananas, figs, strawberries, watermelons and blueberries. Pre mixed foods are very complete and because of this, fruits really only need to be offered a couple times a month.

It is nice to offer live insects, not only for the added nutrients, but also for the enrichment. The enrichment that is offered by live bugs is just about as close as you can get to what the gecko experiences in the wild. They get to experience stalking, hunting and chasing the bugs and this is something that is not achievable for geckos who are not fed live bugs.

As far as our favorite pre-mixed gecko diets, we love Repashy superfoods as well as the Pangea pre-mixed foods. These brands offer a huge selection and allow you to give your geckos a great variety of scents, flavors and colors. They also have various different mixes containing insects as well as some fruit only mixes. Most people have great luck getting their geckos to eat these foods and the complete mixes with insects are amazing for geckos who may not be interested in live bugs.

With all of these things considered, there are many options for crested gecko owners and it is becoming easier and easier to give our geckos the best lives in captivity. A good diet, paired with a great enclosure setup will help ensure that your little friend lives a long and happy life!