Catriona,
Sorry to quote to you (it's just someone else's opinion anyways), but in
"The Leopard Gecko Manual", p.11, de Vosjoli et al write, "Like many other
terrestrial geckos such as frog-eyed geckos (Teratoscincus) and spider
geckos (Agamura), leopard geckos will naturally ingest substrate as a source
of calcium. Supplying calcium by coating of insects and by offering dishes
of calcium carbonate will usually satisfy their calcium needs and prevent or
reduce ingestion of large amounts of sand."
>From: Catriona Lindsay <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Re: [Gecko] Is Bed-A-Beast bad?
>Date: Tue, 13 Feb 2001 06:22:27 -0800
>
> >I might venture furthur to surmise that animals which eat sand (except
> >little boys and girls) do so because they evolved in a place with a
> >substance in the sand (in our case, calcium) that they needed.
> I am not sure this is true. I would think that lizards would get a lot of
>calcium from the herbivorous insects that they eat. Many dark leafy green
>plants contain calcium. Many keepers are not good about gut loading their
>insects with greens, and I also don't think we have formulated a good diet
>that duplicates what insects would eat in nature. Maybe a lizard eats sand
>as a last resort to get the calcium that we are not providing.
>Catriona
>
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