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Home > Care > Feeding Day geckos
 

Feeding

In the wild, day geckos feed on insects, other invertebrates, flower nectar and pollen. In captivity they get a mixture of baby food and insects.
Once a week I feed my day geckos a mixture of baby food (banana, apricot, mango etc), Lori foods (Cédé Lori Food® and Orlux Lori®), sugars and a powdered vitamin/mineral supplement. This can be placed in some form of lid or cap from a bottle. This should be replaced from the tank daily. Most day
geckos cannot wait to get it. There are a lot of good mixtures available, then you only have to add water or syrup and vitamin D3 (vitamin D3 is required for the effective absorption of calcium). Take a look at Repti-Farm.nl, they have developed an excellent mixture that is relatively cheap.
They are also fed insects powdered in vitamin/mineral supplements. Supplements that are often used: CALCICARE® 40+, KORVIMIN ZVT® and VITA TOTAAL®.
Deciding which insects to feed depends of the size of the Day geckos. Insects that you are often fed are as follows:

Juvenile Phelsuma m.madagascariensis feeding on a small cricket.

Juvenile Phelsuma m.madagascariensis feeding on a small cricket.
 

Crickets; are the most common food source for most geckos and are available in different sizes and species. These must be "gutloaded" prior to feeding to ensure high nutritional value for your geckos. Feed them on oats, fresh fruits and vegetables, before you feed them to your day geckos. There are also prepared foods available for livefoods to buy.

Grasshoppers; are mainly fed to the larger species. These can be caught in the long grass by "sweeping" a net through the grass. Make sure you catch them in a chemical free area, (i.e. no pesticides have been used).

• Waxworms; are high in fat and have a bad calcium:phosphorus ratio (1:8) These are the equivelent of "sweets" and should be fed as a treat rather then as a main food source. Some geckos can become addicted and refuse all other food items if fed too many.

• Wingless fruit flies/Drosophila; used for feeding juvenile day geckos and often the smaller species of Phelsuma.
• Field plankton; these are insects you catch outside “in the wild”, usually be a method name "sweeping", inwhich you drag a net through the long blades of grass. These insects have a high nutritive value as they have gutloaded theirselves. Make sure you catch them in a chemical free area, (i.e. no pesticides have been used).