Repashy Diet - How can I get them to eat it?

[Menhir]

So, I finally decided to post my 'negative' experiences with the two part diet. None the less, I hope you take the time to read the post carefully since it's not my intention to bash the product.

Last autumn, I decided to give it a try and ordered the two part diet from Pangea, 10 flavors, lots of base powder and I was full of confidence that I'll switch to the Repashy products. I tried for about 3 months to switch my animals from baybee food and insects to the two part diet. In that time, hardly any animal ate the diet by itself. I had to handfeed my whole collection regularly in order not to have them loosing too much weight - some animals looked quite sick after >2 months hardly eating the diet. I tried different tricks like adding a little baybee food, honey and all that stuff - hardly any success. Finally, after about 4 months, I decided to switch the problem feeders back from the diet to alterntingly offering them baybee food and repashy. The sad thing is, some of my best feeder, e.g. the Troeger dark morphs, now even often refuse to eat the baybee food. Before switching them to the diet, they cleaned every dish I offered them. On the other hand, I have some animals that love the diet like two Henkelis and one ciliatus.

So, I carefully read the posts in this board before and tried the tricks I mentioned. Is there any trick or advise one can give me to give it another try?
I think that the product is a very good product. The handfed animals grow very well, look healthy, are active. But as soon as I stop the handfeeding, they start starving. :-( And to be honest, me as a Ph.D. student keeping about 25 Rhacs, a huge number of corns and some asien rat snakes - I don't have time to handfeed all Rhacs twice a week... it's simply impossible.

I highly appreciate any input and/or advice on this one. Many thanks in advance,
Michael

[Allen Repashy]

Hallo Michael,

No worries on my taking any comments as a "bash" I have no doubts that your intention is to help yourself and others.... I will let others comment on this thread so it doesn't look like I am trying to defend myself...Switching geckos that have spent a lot of time on another diet can be frustrating sometimes. We are all individuals.. gecko or human. It sounds like an interesting problem, and I am totally confused that your geckos won't switch back to babyfood... that is a new one for me...

It sounds like German geckos are much different than American and Canadian ones LOL... I have a Mercedes sedan that is a great car for me, but my geckos hate to ride in it.. They much prefer Japanese for some reason...

All kidding aside, lets see if we can all get to the bottom of this problem. I know there are some members with good suggestions and lots of experience to share.

Allen

[Andrew Gilpin]

Unfortunately I've never had much trouble getting animals to switch over.... I've mostly kept ciliatus and auriculatus, but receiving both species from people who don't feed the diets, I've had them eating pretty well within a month of offering them nothing else.
When I did decide to switch all of my animals over a few years ago, it was with the original CGD mix that wasn't as sweet as the new stuff. At that time I did mix a 100% juice mix smoothie made by bolthouse farms. I'd pick a bottle of whichever flavor I felt like trying out, and I'd use about 1/4 of the liquid volume made up of this smoothie. From there I just worked it out of the mixture over a couple of months. I don't know for sure if this actually helped or not.
I also think it would be helpful to verify that you're mixing the 2-part diet powders by weight and not volume ( before adding the water). I believe the original instructions were to go with 40% nectar to 60% base.... Allen had mentioned that he was trying 50/50 by weight while we were out there last year, but didn't want to announce it publicly until he had played around with it enough to verify that it was healthy for all of the animals. Since then we've just mixed our's 50/50 by weight as well since it's much easier to mix that way rather than calculating the 40/60.... Haven't had any problems with calcium issues in the last year, so it might be worth a try.
I take it you've also tried most of the flavors as well?
Honestly I've tried maybe 5-6 flavors, and found a few to be more accepted by most of the species, so I've mostly stuck to the rose and cherry flavor.
Keep us posted on how it goes for you.

[jtmoney528]

Just curios what flavors did you try?

[Gecko Ranch]

I have to second what Andrew said about the mixing properly; it may just be as simple as a Betty Crocker problem. Her recipes are not bad, but they can be done wrong! Usually I start folks out on the Crested Gecko Diet first so they can get used to the diet with less work than the two-part MRP. Once they are comfortable with that and they would like to give their geckos some variety then I encourage them to try the two-part MRP. This is a process that works well for my customers.

From my observations hand-feeding antagonizes any naturally adaptive processes the geckos have to keep their appetites normal. I would save that for the critically ill only and let the geckos become hungry. How many days between feedings?

Can you post some pics of the food in the terrarium with the geckos?

[Salzy]

I know that I had some big problems getting some of my geckos to eat at first as well, but the longest any of them went without eating on their own was 5 weeks. That was a rough time trying to get that one going on the CGD.

I tried adding some honey and different consistencies with that one, and what did it in the end was just time. No animal is really going to starve itself to death, and eventually they will eat. What little nourishment they have been getting through the hand-feeding is probably enough to keep them from eating the food themselves, kind of like what Julie just said in her post.

I would try some different consistencies (more or less water...I've never used the exact ratios instructed on the bag), different flavors, and possibly downsize your terrarium if it is really really large. I know that there is conflicting information out there as to whether or not a gecko can easily find it's food in a large enclosure. In your case though I don't think it would hurt to house the geckos in a smaller cage, just to be sure they can't miss their food bowl if they are roaming around. I wouldn't go any larger than 20 gallons, and a 10 or 15 may even be better depending on the size of your geckos in question.

[plecoperson]

Mine aren't wild about it like some are, but they did both run over to the strawberry flavor I just got and chow down.

I have found that my particular cresteds won't touch the diet if it's too thin; they like it kind of pudding-ish. In fact, they prefer day-old food; I leave it in two nights, stirring it up the second night.

I also cut back on cricket feeding to once every two weeks rather than weekly.

I think we all know how hard it is to try to switch foods with any animal; best of luck to you and yours!

[Menhir]

Originally Posted by Andrew Gilpin

I also think it would be helpful to verify that you're mixing the 2-part diet powders by weight and not volume ( before adding the water).

I use an electronic kitchen scales to mix it.

Allen had mentioned that he was trying 50/50 by weight while we were out there last year

I think on my diets, 50/50 is mentioned as well - that's what my animals actually liked better than 40/60.

I take it you've also tried most of the flavors as well?

I bought 10 different ones and was able to give each flavor at least 4 tries or something.

Originally Posted by Gecko Ranch

From my observations hand-feeding antagonizes any naturally adaptive processes the geckos have to keep their appetites normal. I would save that for the critically ill only and let the geckos become hungry. How many days between feedings?

I really tried this, believe me. But wouldn't you start handfeeding a leach leach if you notice a thin belly, visible spine and slightly wavy tail after about 5 weeks? Weekly handfeeding and they looked healthy and fat again. The thing is - if I put their mouth into the diet, they like it and some even clean the whole dish... but if I put it in the viv, even if they sit 1 inch next to it, they will not start to eat by themselfes.

Can you post some pics of the food in the terrarium with the geckos?

I will do so. But, I'm using really small plastic enclosures like this http://www.leps-fstr.de/images/zb_01.jpg . I also tried shrinking the possible ventilation to raise humidity - without success. Besides the three problem feeders that did not switch back to baybee food either, all animals are eating fine, both roaches and the baybee food.

The thing I'm really worried about is their condition when I do not handfeed them. I think with older animals, the time you have until they have some trouble because of starvation may not be that short, but I mostly tried very young leachianus and, as said, after 5 weeks, they did look like I should do something.
Maybe I should raise them a little more and give it another try when they have gained some reserves?

Thanks for your input,
Michael

[Gecko Ranch]

I would do as you would have with the hand feeding with the conditions you describe. I probably would have done it once or twice then stopped as since they took the food they know it is good. From looking at comparative research of Rhacs vs. Eublepharines and other types of geckos the Rhacs just do not have the same sense of smell or reaction to scent, so a dab on the lips is very helpful for Rhacs to orient to a new food. Hopefully after they did eat it then they would go for it on their own.

Looking forward to hearing more!

[all4x]

Hey Menhir(sp),

I think haha, sorry if I spell it wrong. I also have the problem with getting my 13 week old to eat CGD. I use T-rex and I've tried babyfood, honey, and real fruit with it. With all my efforts and with careful watching I never see the bowl get scooped out or anything. I even tried it all with different kinds lol. I put into one dish CGD dry, wet, w/ babyfood of 4 different kinds, and with real fruit...I didn't get any result:'(. I would really appreciate any help or ideas

thank you,

Matt P.