Best food?

What is the best food for a leopard gecko in your opinion, the crickets or the mealworms, or something else entirely?

Right now I'm feeding Miracle crickets AND mealworms, and a waxworm once or twice a week. But her tail fell off before I got her, so I'm trying to get her to gain weight and grow her tail back.

What would you suggest be her feeding schedule after her tail has grown back? Or at least a starting plan, as I know I will probably have to change things a bit to suit her.

Feeding a diet that offers a variety is your best bet for optimum nutrition. Rotating between Super worms, butter worms, phoenix worms, wax worms and maybe the occasional cricket (I personally hate crickets as they carry parasites, they stink, make noise and are hard to keep).

There is a nutrition chart in the feeding section stickys that will give you a better idea of nutritional breakdown per feeder insect. Some of the feeders may be difficult to find such as butter worms. Check your local fishing bait store for the odd feeders. They usually have a pretty good selection or you can always order from online.

You really don't need to do too much specialized feeding just because she dropped her tail. that was her fat store. You basically should be feeding her a little more often and a healthy diet well gutloaded with fresh veggies. By giving her optimum nutrition is what's going to help her tail grow back maybe a little faster, but in all reality it's going to do what ever it's going to do. You really can't rush mother nature.

Thanks for answering Kermit! (Love your avatar btw, its adorable :P )
What kind of parasites do the crickets carry? Can they be passed on to humans? What is the likelihood of a cricket carrying a parasite, and will it effect my gecko a lot if she did eat one that was carrying a parasite?
(Sorry, I'm a disease-aphob, I'm very obsessive about stuff like this). Miracle really seems to like the crickets, so I wouldn't want to take them out of her diet. I've got my crickets in one of those cricket keepers. If I clean it once or twice a week, do you think that would be good enough conditions to keep them from getting parasites?

I looked at the sticky you mentioned. So, a mixture of the insects mentioned in the "good staple feeder insects" section for the staple diet, and then a mix of treats once or twice a week would be good?

Thank you again for your help!

Sounds like you're on the right track... cleaning the crickets OFTEN will make a big difference as well as making sure they have fresh food either orange cubes complete diet or fresh veggies daily. You don't need to keep much in their keeper, a toilet paper roll to absorb mositure as crickets breathe out mositure every time they exhale so they can literally drown in their own habitat from too much moisture in the air... odd huh...

also with parasites, they carry the general protozoa that you can find in most varities of intestinal parasites, round worm, tape worm, hook worm and some protozoa that are even smaller. Fortunately most are not zoonotic meaning they can not affect you but those 3 I just mentioned ARE zoonotic esp tape worm. So yes there is a slight hazard to you getting parasites if the crickets have them BUT you'd have to be really stupid like eat it directly or put it in the viv by hand then lick your fingers or rub your eyes... some mucoid part of your body... wiping yourself after using the bathroom... so use the proper sanitary precautions when handling ANY feeder and you should be fine BUT your herp won't as they are ingesting them so they will be subject to develop an intenstinal issue IF the crickets are infected. Often times a lot of them come into the petshops affected from the factory farm since there are so many to tend sometimes things get a little less sanitary.

Problem comes usually when the crickets are forced to ingest their own feces or another animals feces for nutrition. There has also recently been a disease going around taht has killed a TON of crickets, no one can figure out where it comes from but it has killed off and closed many cricket farms. I just won't take that chance with my leo since you can't tell if a cricket has a parasite or not. Sometimes they can just ride on their bodies even if the cricket didn't eat it much like house flies.

A mixture of insects is considered "optimum" for your leo for a couple reasons... first obviously it provides the optimum nutrition ratios and ranges they need, next is it helps prevent food boredome and refusal to eat because an animal is simply just sick of that feeder.

Thanks for the compliment on my avatar I have a whole file of kermits that I rotate thru I'm just silly like that

Thanks Kermit! I appreciate it!
I may cut down on her cricket eating then. She does love them, so I won't cut them out completely, just less often. I will clean my cricket keeper A LOT.

I'll go out and buy her some superworms as well, and see if I can find any of the other worms you mentioned

Hahaha, I'm sure you have TONS of Kermit pictures! :P I'll keep my eye out so I can see when you change them!

The only thing with crickets is that you get them from a proper source, and that you keep up with your dead loss. Dead crickets will not only pass disease onto your other crickets, but will also kill them. A proper cleaning of the cage every few days and a good check over for dead crickets is the key to being able to keep and feed crickets safely.