A carnivore's menu, with no fruit bowl
Unlike the fruit-lapping geckos of New Caledonia or Madagascar, the tokay is a straightforward insect hunter. In the wild across Southeast Asia he takes beetles, roaches, moths, other lizards when he can catch them, and any insect that moves within range of a wall or tree trunk at night. Captivity narrows the prey list to farmable insects but keeps the principle untouched: moving prey, caught and eaten whole.
The staple rotation is crickets, dubia roaches, and black soldier fly larvae. Crickets move fast and trigger the chase; roaches are meatier and easy to gut-load; the larvae are soft-bodied and naturally rich in calcium. A diet built from those three, properly supplemented, covers a tokay's needs without exotic extras.
Gut-loading and dusting decide the real nutrition
An insect is only as nutritious as what it ate last. Feed crickets and roaches on leafy greens, carrot, and squash for a day before they meet the gecko, a step called gut-loading, so the vitamins arrive inside the prey. Then dust the insects lightly with calcium powder just before the session, shaking them in a cup until they look faintly frosted. Even the calcium-rich larvae benefit from the routine when they anchor a feeding, and a reptile multivitamin joins the rotation on a less frequent schedule.
Skipping these steps is the quiet failure mode of tokay keeping: the gecko eats heartily, grows, and still develops the soft jaw, trembling limbs, and kinked spine of calcium deficiency. The menu on paper and the menu as delivered are only the same diet when gut-loading and dusting actually happen.
Variety insects and honest treats
Locusts, silkworms, and hornworms add variety in size, texture, and water content, and a hornworm's bright color draws a strike from even a distracted hunter, which makes it useful for a gecko who has been off food after a move. Waxworms are the candy of the rotation: soft, fatty, and addictive enough that some geckos begin refusing plainer prey. Keep them rare and small in number, offered by tong as a trust exercise rather than scattered as a meal.
Some keepers offer a pinky mouse now and then to a large adult, particularly a female recovering condition after laying eggs. It is optional, calorie-dense, and easy to overdo; a tokay's insect menu, properly supplemented, does not need it.
How much, judged by the animal
Feed juveniles daily and adults every other day, offering what the gecko hunts down in a focused session rather than a fixed insect count, since prey sizes vary too much for counting to mean anything. A thick-based tail and a muscular, alert body say the menu is right. Tokays are territorial and vocal, and a healthy male will bark at the world well-fed; a silent, thinning gecko who stops defending his wall is telling you something has slipped, starting with temperature, since a cold tokay will not feed no matter what is offered.
Persistent refusal beyond a shed, tremors, a visibly soft or misaligned jaw, or eggs laid with thin, collapsing shells by a breeding female all merit a reptile veterinarian, with your insect and supplement notes in hand.
Keeping the rotation true across keepers
A three-insect rotation with two kinds of supplement collapses quickly into whatever bag is nearest the tank, unless the session gets written down. Record the insect, the dusting, and any refusals at each feed, and the pattern stays visible across weeks and across people. Using KinsLe, Care Teams turns each of this tokay's sessions into an assigned duty with its completion time recorded, so the next keeper can see he had roaches and calcium last session and is due crickets tonight.