Here are some gut loading studies on all of the gut loading diets you saw on the shelf at Petsmart. Mazuri Better Bug, Fluker’s High Calcium Mealworm Diet, and Fluker’s High Calciun Dubia Roach Diet. The High Calcium Cricket Diet isn’t as good as the other formulas because it actually doesn’t contain the calcium that is on the guaranteed analysis.
I can’t post a picture of the abstract that I was sent for the study on Fluker’s High Calcium Dubia Roach Diet, so I pasted the text here.
USING A HIGH-CALCIUM COMMERCIAL GUT-LOADING DIET TO IMPROVE THE MINERAL CONTENT OF CAPTIVE-BRED DUBIA ROACHES (BLAPTICA DUBIA)
E. D. Barras, DVM'2, K. L. Boykin, DVM, MS°, M. G. Aguilar, DVMP, Z. N. Lex, BS', A. K. Bitter,
BS?, M. A. Mitchell, DVM, MS, PhD, DipECZM (Herpetology)?
"Division of Laboratory Animal Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
"Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA
Dubia roaches (Blaptica dubia), a feeder insect originating from Central and South America, are often fed to captive reptiles. However, they have a natural inverse calcium to phosphorous (Ca) ratio. Reptiles fed non-gut loaded insects are more susceptible to developing nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (NSHP). This study's purpose was to determine whether commercial gut loading diets could be used to produce a positive Ca ratio in these insects. Roaches (0.2 g, 16 mm) were fasted for 24 hours and then randomly divided into a control group (n=6, baseline) and three experimental groups (12 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours; n=6 each). Each cohort represented approximately 75-80 roaches (15-18 g). Roaches in the experimental groups were gut loaded on 50 g of the Fluker's High-Calcium Dubia Roach Diet (Fluker Farms, Port Allen, LA, USA) for 12, 24, and 48 hours. All groups were humanely euthanized by isoflurane overdose and transferred to a -80°C freezer for storage until analysis. Samples were sent on ice packs to Dairy One (Ithaca, NY, USA) for nutritional analysis. At baseline, all control cohorts had a severe inverse Ca (mean: 0.15÷0.007, min-max: 0.14-0.16); however, the Ca ratios were found to significantly increase at all three time points compared to baseline (P<0.0001; all means >1.4). These results confirm that dubia roaches fed a high-calcium diet can be used to provide an appropriate Ca ratio for captive reptiles. For publishing reasons, further commentary and references are not provided.
