If your gecko is growing slowly, look at how you mix its food. Too much water can leave it full and still underfed.
Video · 6 min watchWritten by Brian
A keeper with one pet crested gecko emailed me recently. They had bought him fairly young, he was growing very slowly, and they could not work out why. A gecko can grow slowly for many reasons. This is one of them, and it is easy to check.
Two cups, same volume
To show it, I mixed two cups of Repashy Grubs 'N' Fruit, a diet I like and feed a lot, using a 1/2 teaspoon measuring scoop. Each cup got five scoops in total.
- Cup one: 2 scoops of powder, 3 scoops of water.
- Cup two: 1 scoop of powder, 4 scoops of water.
Both cups hold about the same amount. The second is far too runny. The first is a thick paste, like a good ketchup or a smoothie.
Why it matters
Think about which one gives your gecko more when it eats until its stomach is full. The thick one: more food, more calories, more nutrients. With a very watery mix, even waterier than my second cup, a gecko can fill its stomach until it cannot eat any more and still not get enough nutrition. With a thicker mix it gets everything it needs, probably before its stomach is even full, and that shows in its growth rate.
I see this quite often with people who do not know why their geckos are not growing well. If the food is mixed too thin, they are not getting the calories, density and vitamins they need to grow and stay healthy.
Check your own mix
It is easy to fall into a routine, make the food the same way every night, and not notice it getting more and more watery over time. Even if you have no growth problems, or your geckos are full grown, pour some out next time and take a fresh look at the consistency.
My two cups were deliberately extreme for the camera. Somewhere between them is right: thin enough to flow, but thick, like a smoothie or a good milkshake.