The two halves of a tiny menu
Everything about feeding a mourning gecko happens at miniature scale. The staple is a complete powdered gecko diet, stirred with water into a thin paste and served in a dish not much bigger than a bottle cap. It stands in for the nectar, pollen, and soft fruit this species laps up in the wild, and it is formulated with the protein and calcium a plain fruit puree would lack. The second half is live prey small enough for a three-inch lizard: flightless fruit flies, dwarf roaches, and pinhead or week-old crickets.
A gecko fed only powder will survive the menu but miss the hunting behavior that makes up much of her night. A gecko fed only insects, in a humid planted tank where prey vanishes into the foliage, will quietly run short on calcium. The pairing is the diet.
Live prey, sized honestly
Fruit flies are the workhorse: the wingless cultures are easy to keep, the flies climb to the top of the enclosure where the geckos hunt, and even hatchlings can manage the smaller species. Dust flies and crickets with calcium powder before release by shaking them gently in a cup with a pinch of supplement; undusted feeder insects are mostly water and shell for an animal this small.
Offer insects in modest numbers a few times a week rather than flooding the tank. Prey that escapes uneaten breeds in the substrate, and loose crickets large enough to notice a sleeping gecko can injure one. A tiny feeding ledge for the powder, placed high, and insects released near the geckos' evening perches keep most of the menu where the geckos actually are.
Feeding a colony of clones
Mourning geckos reproduce without males, so a keeper who starts with two geckos will, in time, keep a colony of related females spanning several generations in one enclosure. Feeding must reach all of them. Dominant adults claim the best ledge; this month's hatchlings, each barely an inch long, need a dish at their own level and may only feed safely after the adults move off.
Run at least two powder stations at different heights in any colony tank, and place a third if you regularly find one dish mobbed and another untouched. Watching the tank after lights-out with a red or dim light tells you more about who is eating than any morning inspection of empty dishes.
Eggs, growth, and calcium demand
Adult females glue pairs of hard-shelled eggs to leaves and enclosure walls through much of the year, and that steady production draws heavily on calcium. A female whose diet is mostly insects with inconsistent dusting may produce thin-shelled eggs or draw on her own reserves. The formulated powder, offered fresh every day or two, is her safety net, and a small dish of plain calcium in the enclosure lets females top up on their own schedule, a habit many keepers observe in this species.
Females who stop producing eggs, develop tremors, or show a soft jaw need warmth, diet, and lighting reviewed and a reptile veterinarian involved if the signs persist; these are not problems another week of the same routine will fix.
Rotating dishes across several stations
Multiple feeding stations on different refresh days are exactly where a colony's care slips: one dish gets changed faithfully, another grows a film of old diet in a forgotten corner. Number the stations, put each on its own refresh rhythm, and mark them off as they are done. With KinsLe, Care Teams lists each station's dish change for this colony as its own recurring duty with a completion timestamp, so a quick glance shows which ledges hold fresh food tonight and which are due.