If there is one thing I’ve learned after living with pets since I was a kid, is that we always want to share whatever we’re eating with our pets. It’s just human nature to want to share a meal.
If you’re at home eating your food with your pet right next to you, won’t you feel like sharing?
Yes, sharing is caring but should you share your meals with your pet? If you’re eating a fruit can you share it with your crested gecko?
Wild crested geckos typically thrive on fruits and insects. However, geckos in captivity are reared on a commercial diet. This ensures that the gecko eats a well-balanced meal and the diet is available at your local pet store.
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What Fruits Can Crested Geckos Eat
As mentioned earlier, wild crested gecko diets mainly consist of insects, but they also eat fruits such as passion fruits, peaches, papayas, mangoes, etc.
Avoid feeding you gecko food that has a high concentration of oxalic acid. Such foods include citrus fruits as they have high concentrations of vitamin C and oxalic acid. It’s said that vitamin C might cause diarrhea in crested geckos.
This means you should avoid fruits such as grapefruits, kiwis, lemons, pineapples, and oranges. Keep in mind that your crested gecko might enjoy eating these fruits, but it doesn’t mean you should give them.
Also, avoid fruits with persin. This includes fruits such as avocados which humans and other pets might enjoy. However, don’t feed such fruits to your crested gecko as it might be toxic to your pet.
Crested geckos can eat fruits such as bananas which have oxalic acid, but very low concentrations. You see, oxalic acid is said to inhibit the absorption of calcium which crested geckos need.
Therefore, you should limit the consumption of foods with high oxalic acid content. Fruits like bananas contain oxalic acid, but the levels are extremely low. This makes bananas a great treat. Cresties love bananas so much that they can eat the skin.
Other fruits you can offer include mangoes, pears, watermelons, dates, blueberries, plums and peaches.
How Often Can Crested Geckos Eat Fruits?
In the wild, they probably eat fruits as often as they want. However, in captivity, things are a little bit different thanks to commercial diets. You see, these commercial diets have all the nutrients that crested geckos need to thrive.
Therefore, foods such as fruits are relegated to treats which are offered one in a while. If it’s a fruit such as a banana, you can cut it into little pieces, mash it or throw it in your blender. The idea is to make the fruit as tiny as possible so that your gecko can enjoy the treat without choking.
In most cases, you should feed your gecko fruits one or twice a month as a treat. However, when you’re dealing with fruits such as the kiwi, you can feed your pet twice a week. Don’t forget to mash it or cut it into small pieces.
How to Introduce Your Gecko to Fruits
Like humans, crested geckos have varying tastes, so don’t expect your crestie to love fruits that your friend’s crestie loves.
Think of this as how you introduce children to certain foods. Start by introducing your crestie to the fruit of your choice and assess it’s reaction. You can serve the fruit at infrequent times and watch how your crestie responds to it.
Try another fruit and assess the reaction. Eventually, you’ll find a couple of fruits that your crestie loves. Don’t forget to check the fruits to avoid when introducing your crestie to fruits.
If you settle on apples, you can cook them to make them softer. Remember that cresties don’t have the same jaw strength as other pets. You can cook the apples, blend it and feed the mashed apples to your gecko.
You can also peel the apples and grate them before feeding them to your gecko. The reason for peeling is to remove any chemicals that might be on the skin. Remember, most of the fruits we eat are sprayed with chemicals throughout the growing stage.
The chemicals found in pesticides might have adverse effects on your pet gecko. Therefore, don’t forget to peel the outer layer of the apples.
How to Prepare Fruits for Crested Geckos
As mentioned earlier, crested geckos don’t have a strong bite and can’t eat large chunks of food. This is why we’ve suggested that you cut the food into small pieces, mash or blend it.
Ideally, use the space between the cresties eyes as a measuring tool. Any piece of food that you feed your gecko shouldn’t be wider than the space between the crested gecko’s eyes.
How do you prepare fruits?
- Start by washing the fruits. The first step before you eat any fruits is that you clean them. Therefore, do the same for your pets to clean off the pesticides and bacteria.
- Once the fruit is clean, peel, and cut it into small pieces. If you’re working with a harder fruit like apples, you can cook it. Keep in mind that geckos don’t eat that much thus you’ll slice just a tiny section, and you can eat the rest.
- You can mash it into a fruit puree and feed it to your gecko. Remember not to overfeed your gecko.
Key Takeaways
Yes, crested geckos can eat fruits, but there are some type of fruits you should avoid. As mentioned earlier, avoid fruits that are high in oxalic acid.
Geckos are small, docile animals; thus, you should have an easy time feeding them. Don’t forget to limit the frequency of feeding your cresties fruits. Mix up the fruits after experimenting and figuring out which fruits your gecko likes.
Have fun incorporating fruits as treats in your cresties’ diet. Keep in mind the fruits can be treats but not the main course. The main meal should be commercial crested gecko food that you can find at your local pet store.
You can also add insects and mealworms to the diet. Ideally, you want to feed your gecko small insects or insects that your gecko can crush with the small teeth and jaw.
