Crested Gecko Diet - Wet... or dry?

Discussion in 'Rhacodactylus (Crested) Geckos' started by maryse, Jun 3, 2011.

  1. maryse

    maryse New Member

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    Hi All!

    I know that the majority of breeders and keepers feed the diet to their geckos wet, but I have encountered some (including a few breeders) that feed dry. Any opinions?
     
  2. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  3. Cammy

    Cammy ReptileBoards Addict

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    Hey there. I felt bad that no one was responding to this so I did a quick search on the subject. The general consensus seems to be that feeding dry is not the best option. Reasons people have given include:
    1. It will decrease the amount of hydration your gecko is getting since most of their moisture is obtained from their food.
    2. It may throw off the nutritional values. In other words, since it won't be diluted by the water, your gecko may be getting higher amounts of the nutrients than normal. The percentage of everything will remain the same, but I believe the thinking is that your gecko will eat the same amount of food, but since there will not be water in it, it will be ingesting more than usual......I don't know what the factual basis is on this point, though.
    3. It may interfere with the digestion of the food. Again, don't know if there is any factual basis for this.
    My opinion is that it's probably best to feed wet, primarily because of the hydration issue. Plus, I'm a fan of following directions, and the directions don't state that you can feed it in powder form with the same results. All in all it's a pretty "grey area" subject, as there isn't any factual research to clarify what the effects of feeding dry are. There's a bunch of empirical and implied evidence for both sides of the argument, but nothing is concrete. Until there is a more definite answer to your question, I believe following instructions is probably the best choice. :)
     
  4. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  5. fyreflyx

    fyreflyx New Member

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    I never tried dry food, but used Rapashy after my girl started showing signs of calcium deficiency. It took some time and she was hand fed for the first while, but she did bounce back.

    (I guess you can feed Rapashy dry, but I mixed it with water)
     
  6. JEFFREH

    JEFFREH Administrator

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  7. StikyPaws312

    StikyPaws312 Moderator

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    You know... I'm not really sure if my geckos would even eat it dry... they've had it "wet" for so long I doubt they would even know if they could eat it or not! Lol... I may need to try an experiment. Like in my other post I'm having some seriously annoying issues with mold this summer.... it's really driving me a little crazy o_O

    I'll put a little bit of dry powder in their tanks tonight and see what they "think" of it...
     

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