Why gut load crickets

Most feeder insects share a very similar diet and can be fed the same produce, like fresh fruits and vegetables. Crickets and roaches, on the other hand, require hydration. Pisces recommends: Fluker's Orange Cube Cricket Diet, these cubes will provide your crickets with both nurishment and hydration. If you are feeding your crickets produce or dry foods, an invertebrate water dish is ideal to prevent them from drowning.

The last step to properly gut load your food is to dust them. What is dusting? It is important to know what calcium formula is right for your pet, whether it be no D3, low D3 or high D3. Always consult your local pet store before dusting to make sure you have the best formula for your reptile.

Please call or visit us in-store for our most up-to-date selection! Click here for shipping policies. When dusting and gut-loading are performed correctly with high quality products hobbyists can be successful but there are several pit-falls that impact even the most experienced keeper. First, there are studies from several years ago that clearly demonstrate that common and commercially available dry gut-loads, along with high moisture calcium gut-loads are wildly inconsistent.

The study proved that while some products are of high quality, nearly half of them do not contain the nutrients promised on the label. Often, even if they did contain the nutrients, they were in a form or particle size that was impossible for an insect to eat — making it impossible for them to be delivered to the reptile.

Common feeder insects are unable to absorb or retain calcium in any reasonably beneficial capacity — so hobbyists are hoping the gut-load is still in the belly of the insect when it is fed to the reptile. Many of the additional nutrients necessary are also off-loaded rapidly by the feeders, again making the gut-loading process untrustworthy — even when done correctly with high quality products. Successfully delivering nutrients with dusting is also very difficult to measure in any meaningful way.

Again, the success starts with using a high-quality product in a market where poor products are common. Next the amount of supplements received by the reptile are subject to the size of the insect dusted and how long it takes for that insect to groom that dust off of them. Feeder insect producers, food manufacturers, retailers and breeders MUST do a better job of cutting through the pseudoscience and internet chatter to deliver sound and consistent advice to reptile hobbyists.

You'll definitely want to use a dry gutload as well. I made one based on sandra's blog and it gets devoured by the crickets. For a wet gutload I use orange, apple, dandelion greens, spinach, arugula, mango, kiwi, papaya, among other fruits and veggies. I use a different wet gutload every week. Sometimes I use a medley of all the things i listed that I have in my freezer. My crickets seem to like dinofuel raptor edition as far as dry gutload.

Supposed to help the colors pop more in your cham. Mines still a baby so I couldn't confirm this but she's bright bright green. That's It's been updated Im just not finding It this second! Good start though! BocaJan New Member. Sabayon said:. Gutloading is the process of working through the food chain to feed the prey animals the nutrition that your insectivore pet needs to replicate what they would eat in nature. Crickets are basically just water and chitin not very nutritious or digestible and the pet stores only feed them cardboard, or potato at most, so feeding crickets directly after you get them from the pet store or vendor is not providing much in the way of nutrition to your pet.

Gut loading can't be done in all feeders but is very easy in crickets and super worms - two common feeder bugs. How do you chose what to use? Gutloading ingredients should be chosen that are higher in calcium than phosphorus.

High phosphorus levels in the food impedes calcium absorption. Inadequate dietary calcium leads to metabolic bone disease. Commercially available gutloads such as Fluker Farms Cricket Food are not balanced or sufficient for good nutrition in any species.

Lettuces and cabbage do not have any significant nutritional value. Also, avoid things like dog food, cat food, and fish flakes which are high in animal proteins which can cause kidney damage. Feeding such things like pinky-mice, fuzzies, and feeder anoles that are extremely high in fat and protein content is harmful to your chameleon's health, bones and organs that can lead to serious illnesses like gout, edema, organ failure and fatality.

Eh I get all my info from Sandra so credit goes to her for sure lol. One thing I've noticed, I dont know if its different with other people but Crickets LOVE greens.

They eat the other stuff yes, but when I put greens in there, they are gone. The first time I did this I actually asked my gf if she cleaned out the bug bin. She didnt. So the second time, I watched, and it was like watching a fast forward clip of Silks eating mulberry. I've heard people say don't use iceberg head lettuce. I'm not sure if its because it has no nutritional value, just water. Or if it has something harmful in it.