How old do leopard geckos have to be to eat pinkie rats?? What about pinkie mice? are they good to eat? Do they even sell pinky mice?? Well thanks for any replies.
i wuldnt reccomend feeding pinkies till the gecko is full grown (about 19 months to 2 years). i wuld try to only feed a pinky if the gecko is a gravid female or needs fattening up. Some leos will take them and others wont touch em. they arent good to eat unless it needs fattening or gravid or sick. U can feed them as a treat though even if the leo is fat and healthy. they do sell pinkies but dont give yur leo many. only 1 every month or so if u plan on feeding. If u really want to see the bad side of yur leo, give it a pinky and yull be amazed, this is not for the week hearted or squimish types.
yea but wat about sick? and they need to be full grown adults to eat it. ive only seen a leo eat a pinky at my friends house (he had a gravid female). thats the only experience i have with them. i just got my info from caresheets online and a few books. im pretts sure a couple books as well as online caresheets said u can give them as snacks every 1month-2months. but maybe they r wrong, idk. one book im certain had it waz a book about leopard geckos and african fattails and there waz another but i forgot the name
That is not a rule... about once or every two months is fine. Just do not feed it alot of mealies or other fatty foods. If they are sick, you may want to layoff of pinkies. As a rre case some pinkies will make them worse because rats are more prone pt have parasites then common feeders. Feeding silkies is a good food for feeding a leo while they are sick.
really, i thought pinkies would help fatten them out if they r sick. at least thats wat ive read. but then again (as always) i may be wrong. once again u have a very good point herpslave. just out of curiosity, have u ever been in a debate class??? cause i think if there waz one on the site u wuld be a pro.
Yes I have in highschool. But I had a choice of either doing debateing, or study in a green house about bugs, plants and a couple herps... I chose that and transfered.
no it is a rule you do not feed pinkies to leos unless they are gravid because of the amount of fat they contain. mealies make a great stable diet and many breeders feed their leos on stable diets of mealworms. you can give pinkies to gravid leos and sick leos (if they have the strenghth)
I would argue with you except I would get very angry. Put simple this is not a rule, once a month is fine 1. Gravid, sick or not.Where did you get this rule from anyways? I would really like to know.
ive read so many caresheets and heard information from many a breeder. i dont care who you are or if you took debate class or whatever i know you are wrong. pinkies are like waxies maybe a for a snack but not once every month they are very fatty and aren't that good for leos. and by the way leos dont eat pinkies in the wild.
I don't care either. I myself have read alot of caresheets, asked people, breeders, herpitoligists too... but before this turns into a big argument where we start off something we do not want to Im saying bye. Yes well leos eat spiders, beetles that are not mealworm beetles, moths, and other things that are small. im sure if there was a pinky mouse in the wild and a leo saw it. One might jump at it... Yes I know they are fatty but my friend donavan, jeremy, lee, and kace have done this for there over 3 year old leos for about a year now... None have been sick yet. IF you are talking about pinkies which can walk then this may be different as they are alittle bigger I think. But I have never fed my leos a walking pinky. I personally don't feed my leos pinkies. But my friends do.
Do you mean waxworms there? Mealies are not fattening, and a great staple food for leos...many breeders feed that alone to their leos. And I'm sure that if they keep feeding them this way, the leos will never live to their natural life expectancy (20+ years). I agree with Klik. Pinkies should only be fed to a gravid female who desperately needs to fatten up. Many leos have lived long, healthy lives without ever eating a pinkie. Rebecca
I have to say something kilk. In the wild Leos have been known (especially adult males) to eat things as large as a scropion and may even invade a nest of young dessert mice or rats. So in the wild they wuld eat pinkies. And dylacat, mealys r a great staple but wat i think hotdoggy dan is tryin to say is that they r fattening and shuld not be fed with pinkys. And mealyworms r fattening, and so r waxworms.
Personally I have 2 leos on a silky diet. They are the best I think. My leos have been very plump, looked better in coloration ect then ever before. My friends leos have never been sick, diseased, hurt, or showing an sign of unhealthy problems. But they plan on stopping at 4 years. This I don't know why. But they are. I guess I may tell them to layoff for awhile and wait for when the female is gravid. But who knows. I might as agan I am an insomniac atm still awake.
If you look at Melissa Kaplan's comparison of nutrients in insects, you will see that mealies are actually less in fat than crickets and silkworms. http://www.anapsid.org/resources/preynutrients.html And yes, I do know that waxworms are fatty. I never disputed that fact. Waxworms are 22.2% fat...whereas mealies are 12.7-14.9%. Rebecca
http://www.beautifuldragons.com/ at this site it says mealworms r 12.7% fat and crix r 6% fat and silkworms r 10.6% fat. Scroll down to where it says nutrition content wen u get to the site. Sry im not tryin to argue, its just i wuld like to know wats correcet and wats not and im just showing u where i got my info
No offense jeff but I do think dylacat is smarter then you. (ATM) Im not taking sides. It is just you have given alot of wrong advice in the past. As Im sure alot of us have.
i know i have givin bad advice havent i. :cry: i need to learn to explain things better before i type them. I just wanted to show where i got my info and i want to no wats correct for the future. I prolly should have looked at melissas site cause that is a great site
Beautiful Dragons is a wonderful site. I have been going there for a cpl of years now. That's actually where I got the info on the waxworms and the lower % on the mealies. If you notice for crix (at the BD site), it says that that's the fat% before gutloading. On Melissa Kaplan's site, it's percentages are after gutloading. Even though I love Beautiful Dragons, and agree with most of what's on their nutrition page, I do tend to look for info elsewhere and compare. The vast amnt of resources are confusing at times. Yet without it, we wouldn't be having such interesting conversations like these. Rebecca
