Economical crickets
- Thread starter nstd
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Matt Vanilla Gorilla
Chameleon Enthusiast
Gell food is junk! Nothing beats a massive variety of well resesrched of fresh fruit and vegetables!
broderp
Avid Member
Conventional thinking states this may be true, but the big issues and ultimate downside to fresh food for many is two fold : Cost and spoilage. The cost of such gut loads is very cost prohibitive for many. Price out that list a t any grocery store (even more if you go 100% organic) and you will see what I mean. The second factor after you spend a ton for the veggie's in the quantity sold at the grocery. Unless you are a breeder and have many animals to feed and go thru dozens and dozens of feeders per day as part of regular husbandry, I find would waste a lot of product and money. When I had a my Cham, (r.i.p. little guy
) he would eat about 10-15 crickets per day. so I going thru about 100 per week. The food I made for the crickets would spoil before they ate it all, either in the cricket keeper or in the fridge waiting to be used up. I had the best success throwing it in a blender and make small frozen mini-ice cubed sized blocks to feed the crickets., But eventually the cubes would get freezer burned and get thrown out.My point is there is a market out there for so called "gel foods" . As a community, we can all post that fresh is best, but in many cases this will not work.
To the OP, there are other brands of feeder food available. I agree fresh is best and if you can do this, great. I've made my gut load as Matt Vanilla Gorilla stated with my last Cham, but used other products as well. I have had success with a product called "cricket crack" (sold here by someone on the forum) as have just purchased a product a breeder I am doing business uses with his Chameleons called "Bug Burger" by Repashy. These specialty products are more costly than the generic pet store stuff, but much cheaper than the fresh veggie method. I used somewhat of a hybrid method, making fresh gut load and mixing it with Cricket Crack. As I described above, I would freeze the mixture and just drop in the small cubes as needed.
Moving forwards I will be trying out Bug Burger and occupationally (read: when I have left over raw vegetables from my own dinners) will be feeding these to the crickets as well.
Hope this helps.
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Matt Vanilla Gorilla
Chameleon Enthusiast
O, I totaly agree that there is a place for dry gutloads! I make my own containing over 200 organic food items (mostly collected in nature far away from any pollution or possible toxic products)! Each item is crefully cleaned and dehydrated slowly under a controlled low temperature environment (as to preserve nutrients such as vitamins and enzymes)! I then grind these up in to a powder and use it along side with fresh gutload!
Once again, the comercial gel stuff that one can buy in the petstores is absolute junk! Most of it is polymer water crystals hydrated with a calcium rich water mix that, depending on the product may contain other minerals vitamins and some amino acids! But honestly, what is in it?
Following is the ingredient list for a very popular blue crystal cricket quencher! $25 for a 7.5 lb jar labeled nutritional cricket supliment (of all things):
Wait, maby this one is better! A yelow/orange cricket quencher, even more poplular! Why, it provides calcium! Once again junk! At $4.99 for a 8 oz jar. Look at the ingredient list!
I can go on and on and on!
Look at the thread started by @Extensionofgreen and see how expensive his personal gutload is! But it is worth every penny! Every bite the bug takes will nourish the chameleon!
https://www.chameleonforums.com/posts/1329782/
Once again, the comercial gel stuff that one can buy in the petstores is absolute junk! Most of it is polymer water crystals hydrated with a calcium rich water mix that, depending on the product may contain other minerals vitamins and some amino acids! But honestly, what is in it?
Following is the ingredient list for a very popular blue crystal cricket quencher! $25 for a 7.5 lb jar labeled nutritional cricket supliment (of all things):
- Water, Polyacrylamide Copolymer, F&D Blue #1.
Wait, maby this one is better! A yelow/orange cricket quencher, even more poplular! Why, it provides calcium! Once again junk! At $4.99 for a 8 oz jar. Look at the ingredient list!
- Water, Polyacrylamide Copolymer, Calcium, F&D Yellow #5.
I can go on and on and on!
Look at the thread started by @Extensionofgreen and see how expensive his personal gutload is! But it is worth every penny! Every bite the bug takes will nourish the chameleon!
https://www.chameleonforums.com/posts/1329782/
Extensionofgreen
Chameleon Enthusiast
Fresh food is not easy to work with. The pickings can be slim in areas that don't cater to culturally diverse markets. Some stores have never heard of dandelion or mustard greens.
Personally, I've always grown and purchased fresh foods and I am able to keep a decent amount fresh for about a week, after it's chopped and processed. For me, now, because I have so many feeders to feed, and I don't have a property that has the sunlight and flat ground for gardening, I rely primarily on a dry mix, but it isn't cheap and those gel products have killed chameleons.
If you can't afford to feed your feeders a diet that is consistent with good health to your animals, you are not prepared to properly care for that animal and have no business keeping one. It's like feeding your dog Kibbles n Bits and expecting it not to die of heart disease or from other premature condition, brought on by a diet of artificial colors, preservatives, flavors, fat, and fillers. Good owners are feeding their dogs well researched, premium kibbles or even fresh foods more and more.
Keeping 1000 crickets well fed on healthy produce is not more than $10-$20 a week, and that's really going all out. Greens are couple dollars a bunch and one sweet potato or butternut squash can be grated off of for a couple weeks, if stored properly.
Life all comes down to priorities. When you have a life in your care, it did not choose you as an owner, parent, or to be kept in captivity. You owe that life to prioritize its care, get it treatment when needed, and remember that the animal doesn't know it only cost x dollars and the food or the vet bills cost so much. That animal just exist, expecting to be able to get what it needs from its environment and if you can't provide that, leave them where you found them.
Personally, I've always grown and purchased fresh foods and I am able to keep a decent amount fresh for about a week, after it's chopped and processed. For me, now, because I have so many feeders to feed, and I don't have a property that has the sunlight and flat ground for gardening, I rely primarily on a dry mix, but it isn't cheap and those gel products have killed chameleons.
If you can't afford to feed your feeders a diet that is consistent with good health to your animals, you are not prepared to properly care for that animal and have no business keeping one. It's like feeding your dog Kibbles n Bits and expecting it not to die of heart disease or from other premature condition, brought on by a diet of artificial colors, preservatives, flavors, fat, and fillers. Good owners are feeding their dogs well researched, premium kibbles or even fresh foods more and more.
Keeping 1000 crickets well fed on healthy produce is not more than $10-$20 a week, and that's really going all out. Greens are couple dollars a bunch and one sweet potato or butternut squash can be grated off of for a couple weeks, if stored properly.
Life all comes down to priorities. When you have a life in your care, it did not choose you as an owner, parent, or to be kept in captivity. You owe that life to prioritize its care, get it treatment when needed, and remember that the animal doesn't know it only cost x dollars and the food or the vet bills cost so much. That animal just exist, expecting to be able to get what it needs from its environment and if you can't provide that, leave them where you found them.
Matt Vanilla Gorilla
Chameleon Enthusiast
It somewhat depends on where you live! I have recently been using predatorfoods.com
Stinger
Established Member
Here the Way I do it . This Gut Load makes Alot . Besides it keeps in the Freezer . I've also made Patties of this Gut Load between layers of Wax Paper . Next time I make it will post Pictures . Those Blue and Orange Gel Cubes is poop . Just like the above folks ,I'm a strong believer of keeping my Chameleons Healthy
Virgil1972
Avid Member
You would have to have a big variety of veggies to get all the different vitamins.
nstd
Established Member
So the multi vitamin dusting just supplements the cricket crack or BB?
Virgil1972
Avid Member
Ya its important to still dust with a good multivitamin twice a month and have a good gut load to feed your bugs. You don't have to buy cricket crack or bug buffet. You can make your own and there are some good recipes on here but if you are not feeding that many bugs it may be more economical to just buy the cricket crack or bug buffet.
Nadine83
New Member
I get my crickets from joshsfrogs.com they are a bit more pricey but good quality. I would avoid flukers They are the cheapest for crickets but poor quality and you end up getting other bugs in the mix, and many dead crickets. (Remember you get what you pay for. If these are feeders I would go for quality rather than cost. (My opinion).
I feed mine repashy superload and bug burger. Along with fresh oranges, papaya, and romaine lettuce. Water gel crystals for extra hydration. I found they do extremely well on this diet. I Rarely have any dead/ill crickets. I also do a cage cleaning once a week.
Also with proper care/conditions you can breed your own... ultimately it's the Cheapest way to get crickets. You'd only need to add small amounts of fresh stock every so often to keep the breeding colony strong.
The best supplements I've found so far are Repcal and Repashy.
Note: joshsfrogs- fresh crickets arrive typically on Thursday.. best time to order.
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WAMBO
Chameleon Enthusiast
Crickets die, but Josh's Frogs banded crickets last a long time. I just feed them left over fruits and veggies before they spoil. But I bought several boxes from eBay that worked out well too. However, I bought a batch of 500 Dubia nymphs from eBay in August, and have been raising them as feeders, and started to feed to my panther for the past month. They definitely eat more than crickets, so if it wasn't for the leftovers, the gutload food would cost much more.
broderp
Avid Member
Just a word about LLLReptile. Be sure you plan a head. They let me down big time recently and lost me as a customer on the first order. I'd call and be sure they have stock and can deliver before placing an order. They took my order for an item in stock, accepted payment then emailed me a day later and said it would take 1-2 weeks to get the item and then another 4-7 days for delivery. When I asked if they could expedite my order for the error on their part, they basically blew me off and said the same thing "4-7 days for delivery once we get it in stock. Canceled my order very shortly after that. I felt "bait and switched" among other things.
I went with Josh's Frogs and am so far 100% satisfied.
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