To everyone that has ever met me in person, or really anyone who has bothered to read much of my work here on the blog (whether that's research, care guides, or anything else!), you know if there's one thing I take seriously, it's testing until I find the best solution to any given question or problem.
In April, I'll have been keeping geckos for 15 years! Which is absolutely crazy to consider, but I really can't imagine my life any other way.
If you've been keeping geckos for very long, or done a lot of research, chances are, you've heard of Pangea. I even have a blog post I wrote about 3 years ago comparing Pangea to the previously most popular food, Repashy! Just like with people, we learn new things every day about all kinds of things throughout the world. With reptiles, and geckos especially, with every new piece of published research, we learn how to take better and better care of our friends.
I used to feed Pangea exclusively to my colony. I had tested all of the other brands that have popped up along the way, including (but not limited to!) Blue River, Repashy, Leapin' Leachies, Pangea, and the pre-made gel diets that you can purchase at big box pet stores like PetSmart and Petco from Exo Terra.
About 2 years ago, a friend of mine gave me a small bag of Lugarti Premium Gecko Diet. I tried it out with a few hatchlings and noticed that they were consistently cleaning out their bowls every time that I fed them. And for anyone who has ever raised Crested Geckos, you know that hatchlings can be a little wishy-washy with their feedings.
For the 2024 season, I tried an experiment. Crested Geckos lay 2 eggs at a time, we call these "clutches". I split every clutch in half, with one hatchling eating Pangea and the other eating Lugarti. Let's take a look at the numbers:
The hatchlings eating Lugarti had a 16% higher growth rate year over year compared to the hatchlings eating Pangea.
The hatchlings eating Lugarti had a 71% decreased rate of shed complications compared to the hatchlings eating Pangea.
Here at Gecko Fancy, we hatched 384 Crested Geckos last year. That's data from 192 hatchlings on Lugarti and 192 hatchlings on Pangea, a sample size I feel is large enough to mean this data has weight to it. We will continue testing in the coming seasons like we always do, but our results from the 2024 season were so good that we have moved our entire colony to Lugarti Premium Diet and will be keeping it that way for the foreseeable future.
Interested in learning more about gecko diet comparisons? Keep checking back on our blog, I'll be posting more information about ingredient breakdowns, price comparisons, and brand ethics/morals to help you make the best decisions for yourself and your scaly friend (or friends!). Want me to take a look at anything in particular? Shoot me a message via our Contact page or leave us a comment!