04/25/2017
Why is my crested gecko significantly smaller than others?
Even if crested gecko are recognized as a mainely frugivorous specie, they need extra protein to grow. The usual way to help them get that extra protein is through insects feeders. Do not exclusively feed insects as this will create an imbalanced diet that will push the growth of the gecko beyond what his body can handle. A crested that gets to his adult weight in a year is not a healthy gecko. It phisically stress the animal and most likely have long term repercussions on the animal health. Now once they are done growing they can technically stick to a CGD (Crested Gecko Diet; Pangea or Repashy). Now when do you know your Crestie is done growing?... It's actually hard to know right away. The final size of your crested is mainly determined by genetic. Some crested won't grow past 30 grams while others will grow beyond 60 grams. That means you only really know after a while, when the gecko is accumulating fat instead of growing.
Reptiles have a metabolism that adapt itself to the food supply. If the supply is good, they can eat a lot for a while and then slow down their intake because they simply don't need it. Anyone that have owned a ball python know exactly what I mean. These snake, after a few nice feeding, can slow down their metabolism and stop eating for months without any change to the temperature of their enclosure. In a similar manner, a gecko that doesn't get the extra food supply needed to grow will not grow until this supply is available to them. And sometimes even if the food is available to them, they will not take it. Stress accumulated from one or many factors can slow down feedings. Here is a list of factor that stress a captive crested: wrong enclosure temperature, no light during the day, humidity not high enough (really common during our Winters), not enough hiding spots in the enclosure and to frequent handling.
Since insects are essentially to the normal growth of juveniles crested, I will now help you find ways to give that balanced diet to your gecko. I attached a video showing how I start feeding insects to juveniles crested. That can be frustrating because they are not the best insects hunters (sometimes they literally suck at it...) and will be intimidated by bugs at first, even if the pray is really small. Small crickets, mealworms, waxworm or Phoenix worms can be used. The nutritional value and ratio protein/fat should not be a concern as it is for insectivore reptiles species. The CGD fed will give the gecko what he needs. And to make my life easy I put extra calcium + D3 vitamin in the CGD I use to complement the feeders use. AKA instead of dusting the insects in calcium. An other way to give that extra protein intake is to use one of these special CGD that include dried Phoenix worm powder; Repashy's "Grubs 'N' Fruit" or Pangea "Fruit Mix with Insects". An other way to do the same thing is to ground up vacume sealed dried mealworms or silkworms pulpae offered by Chubby Mealworms. I recently started to do my own mix like that and all my gecko love it. You can get any of these products from CJ's Critters Snacks in St-John's, NL.
https://www.cjcrittersnacks.com/
