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Substrate is the most important part of the enclosure environment of gecko. The choice of substrate will directly affect your gecko’s health. The wrong substrate can cause some diseases or even death for your pet.
Sand is very controversial as gecko substrate. Many gecko keepers prefer to use sand as a substrate since it is easy to remove waste from sand and it also looks more natural.
Some others consider sand as an unsafe substrate because gecko tent to ingestion sand and it leads to the risk of impaction.

What is the gecko natural environment like?

In the wild, geckos come from desert environments. But it is not the sandy as many people thought so. Their natural habitat is the rocky desert and grassland.  There are rock, hardened clay dirt, and just a little amount of sand in their natural environment. They are not surrounded by any sand dunes. It is a mistake if you mimic their natural life by reptile sand products in their tank.

Moreover, the gecko is one of the firsts reptiles that is domesticated in the world. So your geckos may so much different with the geckos those are grown in the wild.
Geckos in captivity may have more sensitive digestive tracts. Therefore, the pure sand can consider as an unnatural substrate for your geckos.

What is wrong with sand?

Geckos tend to swallow their substrate when they eat. This is more often to happen with younger geckos. And when they eat sand it causes the impaction in geckos, the sand will become cement and causes a blockage in the gecko’s intestines.
Even if you feed your gecko with a food bowl, they still try to lick the sand anyway.
Some people use calcium sand as an alternative but it is still sand. Although calcium sand is proven safer and easy to ingest, but when eating with a much amount, it can still blockage gecko’s bowel.
Furthermore, calcium carbonate sand can neutralize intestines acid and cause digestive issues. Besides, sand also the environment for the growth of mold, bacterial and dust, which leads to respiratory issues.
However, if you still prefer to use sand as the best substrate for leopard gecko for your gecko despite the disadvantages above, ensure that your geckos are adult and they are healthy. The adult and healthy geckos will less likely to eat sand.

Crested geckos become more and more popular reptiles today since their characters and features. Feeding crested geckos seems to be an easy task because, in captivity, they just need to eat premix powder foods to live a long and happy life.

But if you want them to exercise their hunting instinct, provide them mental enrichment, so live food and insects are indispensable parts in their diet. And feeding live foods for crested gecko is no longer as easy as their commercial diet. You have to know crested gecko what do they eat, and how much should they eat.

What insect can crested gecko eat?

Locust, Crickets, Snails, Bluebottles, Stick insects, Dubia, Turkistan, Discoid roaches are some insects that you can feed your geckos. Furthermore, there are some types of worms that crested geckos can eat such as silkworm, butter worms, calcium worms, wax-worms.

Whatever insects you feed crested geckos, there is one rule that you should remember that do not feed them any things bigger than the distance between their eyes. If you do not observe the rule, it can cause the risk of choking hazards because this distance is roughly the width of the gecko’s throat.

What fruits can crested gecko eat?

In the wild, crested geckos prefer to eat overripe fruits. The frequency you should offer fruits for them depends on the type of fruit but basically, you can provide fruits for them as a treat for a few times per month. Some fruits that crested geckos can eat such as mango, pear, grape, strawberry, peach, watermelon, blueberry, fig, banana, etc.

Instead of cutting the fruit into small pieces and feed them, you also can mash the fruits up or make a mixture of some different types of fruits.

Note: You should provide to crested gecko the idea environment with the best reptile humidifiers or temperature to help them eat better.

How frequency should you feed your crested gecko?

For under 6 months old crested gecko, you should offer them premix powder food every day and do not to replace it, should not feed them the food of the previous day. Providing live food once a week.

Adult crested geckos do not need to be fed every day. Instead, you can feed them three or four times per week, many keepers recommend this. And they can eat live food once per week.

If you are a chicken owner and keep your chickens in a traditional chicken coop, then I am sure that opening the chicken coop door is your regular activity every day. Besides this work, you have to wait for them to walk out the coop into the run space and then back into the coop again.

This may get you a lot of inconveniences and interrupt your times. In this case, investing in the best automatic chicken door would be a savvy decision. This device will automatically open your coop at an exact time. It can also come with an integrated light sensor for open and close the door in the day and night.

Various manufactories provide fully different types of automatic chicken doors. Almost automatic chicken doors provide three main options of power source are batteries, electric and solar-powered:

–         As long as you have electricity, you always will be able to use the best chicken coop door opener. But there is a down point that you can only use it if your coop is near the grid. One more thing is when there is a power outage, you have to close and open the coop door in the traditional way.

–         A solar power chicken door seems to be a great idea if you want to use something environmentally friendly and when you are not accessible to the grid. But the drawback is this device can be costly and may not work effectively in cloudy weather.

–         A battery power option is highly recommended for you. Batteries can work well even when there is no electricity.

Whether you choose which option from up here, ensure that the wires are not exposed or your chicken can peck and destroy them.