My tokay gecko likes.

14pokies

Arachnoprince
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Messages
1,735
Hello guys first off great to be back with an interesting story for you guys. I do miss talking with alot of you..

So I must frame the story a bit and I respectfully ask for no condolences please. I only mention the following because it's the reason my husbandry hasn't been up to my standards of which I kinda pride myself on. Unfortunately the husbandry of my animal's has taken back seat to a sudden Illness that struck my Mother and caused her to pass away rather suddenly.

So to try and shorten this story for those that don't want to read the entire post for a week now, I have only fed and watered what couldn't go more than a day or two without needing fresh food, water or daily misting. Mainly my crested geckos and this is what lead me to find out last night that my tokay gecko seems to love bugs and fruit Crested gecko diet.

For the rest of you.

I recently got back into crested gecko's I have a wonderful red pair the male is unicolor extreme red and his girlfriend is a cream and red harley pin I also have a male black that is heavily white fringed,has portholes and shows partial pin/flame in small areas along the dorsal,
when fired he's jet black and stark white, finally I have a halloween partial pin extreme harley that is unsexed at about 10 grams.

I recently downsized on everything I am down to 5-6Ts that are waiting to go to their new home on Sunday, all my monitors,snakes, except one Kingsnake that my Son is taking home tomorrow.However what I did keep was a rescue Tokay gecko that came my way about 1-1/2 yrs ago.. She was wild caught and had been housed with a Savannah monitor for months before she came to me.She was a skeleton with no tail and skin so dehydrated she was unable to shed properly for along time. Being so malnourished and heavily stressed for so long has left her more fragile than most Tokays. She doesn't handle stress at all,she croaks and gapes her mouth when you get within 2 ft of the cage. When you open the lid to feed she sometimes becomes extremely spooked and flails around the enclosure smacking her nose up( not bad enough to bleed or anything but it must hurt) she doesn't tolerate even minor fluctuations in humidity she she dries right out, she stresses at lower temps than most Tokays do also,she turns nearly black and hugs the bottom of the cage. Deplorable conditions left her fragile and she will stay with me permanently because even if God forbid I die she would still be taken care of to my standards. My Son has been raising up Frilled dragons and cornsnake morphs for the last year and half( he's twelve btw, Couldn't be prouder) anyways he would assume care with supervision of my Nephew.

I have turned this gecko around pretty well now she is 3in longer stv and her tail is nearly fully grown back. I usually feed her crickets every 2 days which I now only buy generly on Saturday and feed off throughout the week about a dozen and a half large crickets for her alone .She isn't huge about 9 inch with tail and she in a larger enclosure that she explores like crazy, so that amount of crickets keeps her at a healthy weight. Well, My Mom sadly got sick Saturday and by the evening the doctors we're saying to gather the family. Long story short I drove around 1000 miles in 14 hrs pifking up brothe, sisters and grandchildren in Massachusetts we got back and basically lived at the hospital (my Nephew included who is my back up for taking care of my animals if I can't, my oldest Son was away at camp and my youngest drove with me to keep me sane while picking up the fam). We came home to feed the 2 cats and the 2 dogs we didn't really even have time to shower properly. I showerd once over 3 days I think.. My Mom passed yesterday morning and I got home about 10pm I think. I was prepared for the worst and I got alot of my crying out early after she passed. I'm still not OK at all but her arrangements were made that day and things had slowed down by the time I was home that night.

The kids were in bed and finally my main focus was on my animals. I had sprayed the geckos down heavily twice in the last four days and fed the crested twice as well but that was it. So while I was feeding the crested's I started feeling horrible for the Tokay. She ran out of crickets Thursday so for her it had been just about a week since she ate.. Then I started thinking about how malnourished she once was and I was afraid she might be having ptsd thinking she again was going to starve long term. It was a gut wrenching and stupid thought I admit, this species is super hardy overall and a week without food even for her was really no big deal.. I didn't care it didn't matter to me I felt bad..Lol. I recalled a story in either Fauna magazine ( your old if you remember that Magazine btw) or an early edition of Reptiles magazine, either way the story was about a couple's Tokay gecko that got loose around thanksgiving and ate some pumpkin pie that was on the counter ( the article stated that the now extremely fat gecko was found close to the pie which was now missing a pretty sizable portion and the rest was cobered in gecko foot prints) LOL.. It did mention the gecko was caught and lived for many years after that.

So I said screw it if that gecko can eat litteral garbage,as far as food for a reptile goes it can survive crested gecko diet. So I mixed up a dish of bugs and fruit crested gecko diet ( it's 50%bugs and 50% various fruits) for her along with my crest'ys( btw unlike the Tarantulas I name my gecko's and their names are rediculous, if you want to know what they are named comment below) any ways I figure if she is starving she will eat it.I figured she wouldn't but if she did eat it, it was atleast something untill tomorrow( now today) when I could get her crickets.

I mixed her about a teaspoon and left it in the corner of her enclosure in the 2-3oz deli containers I use for feeding. This morning I went to get the old dishes out of the enclosure to toss them and I figured I would find the Tokays untouched. I was wrong, It was allmost licked clean.. I figure damn this poor girl was so hungry she actually ate it.. I got to the petstore about 10 am today and of all days they were very low on crickets and the only ones they had we're smalls, I ended up with just over a dozen of tiny crix. I tossed a few to the Tokay and one to the rest of the 5 or so Ts I have left. Tonight while mixing up the crested diets I figured why not if she is hungry she will deffinately eat it. I put in about a teaspoon, sprayed everyone down ,turned out the light and went down stairs to watch a movie with the kids. When I came back into my bedroom I noticed the dish in her enclosure was tipped on the side She once again allmost licked the bowl clean and it was only in her cage about 2hrs..

While I don't plan on giving her that as a staple diet I may offer it to her twice a week for a few weeks or sooner if she loses interest, which may happen in the next few days, when she has had her normal size and amount of criclets. I think it is kinda interesting and just wanted to share it with y'all. If your Tokay eats fruits or something like that let me know.. I doubt it but who knows maybe they eat fruit in the wiid once in awhile, she really seems to love it. If anything I may actually swith from water gel while gutloading crickets,instead offering them a slightly more dilute mix of crested diet along with the usual greens and carrots. May just pick up some straight fruit crested gecko diet to feed tlo the crickets, the bugs and fruit mix is a bit macabre even for me.

Ps when I get some time, likely tomorrow or Sunday I will take some pics of the cresties with my old phone and Bluetooth it to this one. This camera quit working pretty common problem with this phn..I have a selfie cam but anyone that knows cresties knows how difficult it can be to get them to sit still for selfies that actually showcase the gecko.
 
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14pokies

Arachnoprince
Joined
Oct 25, 2014
Messages
1,735
I enjoyed your post. It's always rewarding when things slow down and we can give ourselves to our pets fully again. I saw this forum posting and thought you would enjoy it: https://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/lizards/427684-do-tokays-eat-fruit.html Have you considered raising the dubia roaches instead of dealing with crickets? I have Crestie as well and he loves them, as well as the CGD.
Thank you, I will givevit a read before bed tonight.

I have raised dubia and hissers for years! I had a few monitor's and a metric ton of Tarantulas.. I love not having to take care of feeders now. If/when my gecko collection gets to the point that I need that large a voluem of feeders I will just order boxes of crickets. Lol
 

schmiggle

Arachnoking
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
2,220
Interesting stuff. Haven't read the post fully yet but will go back and do so in the next few days.

Wolves famously enjoy watermelon. I think everyone (human and not) likes the taste of sugar.
 
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