Mixing Real Fruit w/ CGD?

[Muttzilla13]

I was just wondering if it's a good think or not such a good thing to mix small amounts of real fruit in with CGD. Yesterday I had a banana and decided to give my gecko a treat I took a small slice and smashed it as best as I could before mixing it with her normal routine of CGD and she seemed to really enjoy it. I'm pretty sure it was alright for her since Cresties are for the most part fruit eaters in the wild and it wouldn't hurt to add some actual fruit to the mix ,of course as long as its not citrus. I was thinking about getting a mango and sharing it a small piece with her as well. Just trying to give her a bit of variety in her somewhat limited diet .

But yeah is it alright to mix fruit in with the CGD?

[that_girl]

It should be fine to mix real fruit. A lot of people will mix the CGD with fruit juice instead of water.

My only concern is will the gecko eat the CGD when the fruit is not present? We've learned that crested really like sweet stuff, which is why many of us suggest adding honey to the CGD when switching animals off baby food.

If you are okay with the risk your gecko won't eat CGD plain, then go for it.

[AndrewLiu]

Thats very interesting, fruit juice that is. It never occurred to me i could do that. Which fruit juices have people be doing?

[cslinca]

I personally wouldnt use fruit juice, too much sugar. You can give your geckos a treat of mashed fruit every now and then, you dont even have to mix it in the cgd. Ill occasionally bring them out and have treat night let them lick some banana or whatever off my finger. If you feel like giving some variety you can get the 2 part cgd and try all the different flavors that way

[AndrewLiu]

I wouldn't be using fruit juice all the time. Most of my animals eat the plain one part just fine. For the poor eaters i've tried adding powdered fruit, honey or two-part nectar to the one part with ok results in terms of feeding response. I just might give this a try.

[cslinca]

If your going to try it out I would use organic unsweetened juice.
Only problem is they might like it too much and then youll have trouble with them eating the regular mixture. have you tried the new one part formula? I keep bringing it up bc I swear by it. It did take a few weeks to adjust but now I have never seen my geckos eat so well, and so much, and are gaining sooooo much weight its great.

[AndrewLiu]

I did manage to get a sample of the new stuff and most of my animals seem to like it, a few stubborn ones don't seem to like it (the same ones that are always stubborn). They don't really like the old version either though. In general they seem to only eat enough to grow very slowly. Organic unsweetened is probably what ill try. Im almost through my last bag of the old stuff so i'll probably end up ordering the new stuff soon from Pangea.

[cslinca]

Yea I had a few stubborn ones too but eventually they took to the new stuff.
Do you feed bugs to your geckos? If not, I know this sounds really gross but someone else once suggested it to me to fatten up geckos, I tried it once or twice. Blend a few meal worms or wax worms in the cgd, I guess you can use anything event he dried crix you can get from petco.

[AndrewLiu]

Using live feeders actually did manage to cut down on my stubborn ones. I had 3 animals that started growing very well after trying various worms, crickets and roaches. I've ultimately settled on using ICB dusted phoenix & wax worms (only occasionally for the wax worms) and crickets for my live stuff. Its still a couple of animals that don't seem to want to eat and put on weight. I have not tried mixing in chopped bugs to CGD yet, but i am willing to try that to.