Leopard gecko care: everything you need to know to get started

[Siders77]

This helped me a lot when prepairing for my baby leo. thanks

[Yazyaz1]

i use beaphar reptile minerals for my leopard gecko, is this ok? (am new to keeping reptiles) it says it is 14% calcium so i was guessing i didnt need anything else?

[SleepyD]

Originally Posted by Yazyaz1

i use beaphar reptile minerals for my leopard gecko, is this ok? (am new to keeping reptiles) it says it is 14% calcium so i was guessing i didnt need anything else?

personally would use pure calcium to dust food during the week and then dust livefood with nutrabol at weekends (plus having a dish of calcium in the viv at all times) ... there's several caresheets on my website which may come in handy

[suez]

Originally Posted by SleepyD

personally would use pure calcium to dust food during the week and then dust livefood with nutrabol at weekends (plus having a dish of calcium in the viv at all times) ... there's several caresheets on my website which may come in handy

take a look at sleepy d caresheets.mine and others too as you see there were a lot of wholes punched in the ops care sheet so it worth doing a little more research.

[maesmith]

good info thanks

[Jeffers3]

Just been reading this. Some good information, but the bit about feeding is very confused. Mealworms are used by many keepers, including some major breeders. Morios are OK for an adult leo, but as pointed out, they can bite. My leo dosen't seem to have any trouble with them, though. Roaches, crickets and locusts should also be offered to give variety in my opinion, although this isn't absolutely necessary.

The biggest problem I have is the advice you have given with regard to supplementation. Calcium alone is not sufficient to prevent MBD, which is still a problem for many captive leopard geckos. Part of the reason for this is that people under-supplement with other things, including vitamin D3. Products such as Nutrobal were designed to be used every day. If used as recommended, there will be no problem of overdosing. They should be used sparingly, but often.

In order to help with calcium uptake further, the current thinking is that a low output UV light is beneficial. Despite the fact that leopard geckos are largely nocturnal and don't get a huge amount of UV expeosure, the evidence suggests that they are actually very effective at using it.