Feeding mealies to babies

[MartinW]

I'm breeding mealies so I have access to small ones. I was wondering how people get their baby leos to eat mealies. Should I put in a mealie dish and give them no crickets? They're eating crickets but not mealies.

Martin

[Bartman]

you can give them the mealies in a dish but you should consider variety. its not good for them to only eat meal worms. You dont neccesseraly have to feed crix but you should use other worms like small silks, wax, and than the mealies as the staple food.

[Pixie]

I fed my little baby a variety of small worms including mealies which she started on for the first 3-4 days. She took to them right away. I had her on paper towels and would put one an inch and a half or two in front of her. They're really easy for them to see on the paper towels and she spotted it quickly and went for it. A few days later, I started using a "dish" which was a white plastic lid that was very shallow and didn,t really contain the worms well but did a great job as she saw them easily and ate them all before they got a chance to run away.

Good luck,
Pixie

[Tim and Julie B]

I have found that most will not take them immediately. I start everyone on crix and within 2-3 weeks they seem to warm up to the idea of mealies. I do the same as Pixie by placing a mealie onto paper towel so that they are easily visible. After a while they will take them from a dish. I also agree that there should be variety. It's okay to use mealies as a staple diet, but you do need to offer a variety or food items such as crix and small silkworms to your babies. Adults need even more variety, but they are also more willing to eat other food items.

Julie B.

[Clownfishie]

My babies are all fed mealies from the time they start eating -- I find that either putting one in front of them on the substrate, or holding it in front of them using tweezers/tongs works quite well... after a little while they figure out that what's in the dish is the same thing that they've been eating Again, variety is important -- put some small crickets in there too on occasion, or some other small worms...

[damzookeeper]

After talking to clownfishie, beth, and a few other breeders here I have began to feed my babies from 1st shed on a staple of mealies. They take to them pretty fast and most of my one month olds on staple of mealies are just as big or very close to the size of some of my 3 month olds that were started on crickets and put on mealies at 2 months. I couldn't believe the difference!
I also make sure to feed them smaller ones for the first while and they get crickets once a week. the mealies are put in a dish of calcium and the babies get calcium when they eat the mealies. Believe me I know cuz I sometimes have calcium all over the bottom of the cage where they were digging for the worms. lol.

[Alicewave]

Mine are fed a staple of mealies too. One ate them right away even before the first shed I think, the other took a little time. Crickets were no more enticing to that one.