freezing feeder crickets

[Allen Whitaker]

So i have been preparing for the purchase of a veiled chameleon. I have the cage built and filled with ficus and pothos plants for food and i was planing on making my own recipe for food but i wanted to know if i could freeze the crickets once they have been properly gut loaded. If not how could i keep feeders and not have to put up with the noise and smell.

 

[ciafardo 4]

insects dont fair well after bien frozen it turns them to mush the ideal thing is to provide healthy live food items for your cham i keep mine in the basement and smell nor noise bothers me but i think your freezing idea is a bad one if care of insects proves to be to much for you not to be rude but find another hobby

 

[Julirs]

Keeping healthy feeders is the name of the game in cham keeping. I spend almost more time cleaning and caring for feeders then the chams themselves! If you don't want to deal with crickets, then Superworms may be a better option. They are easy to gutload, don't smell that much, and don't make noise.

 

[sandrachameleon]

So i have been preparing for the purchase of a veiled chameleon. I have the cage built and filled with ficus and pothos plants for food and i was planing on making my own recipe for food but i wanted to know if i could freeze the crickets once they have been properly gut loaded. If not how could i keep feeders and not have to put up with the noise and smell.

I think you may have trouble trying to offer frozen crickets. Maybe choose roaches instead. My M Hissers are mostly quite (a lot less noisy than crickets) and my Turkishtan roaches are silent. Niether stinks . Both are easily gut loaded. Not hard to keep either.

I just buy crickets periodically, cuz I cant handle raising them (too much time spent cleaning, and they are noisy as you well know). I feed off all the male crickets FIRST, so that I hear the noise for less time. Or if I'm getting a larger amount, I keep them in the garage!

Various larva are also an option. But I wouldnt rely soley on those.

Truth is, if you're going to keep chameleons, you're going to have to keep live bugs too.

 

[Allen Whitaker]

Thanks

Man, thank you guys for responding. The help was very useful, and i am now anxious to get a pic of my set up on here so that i might get some info on it and some changes that i might be able to make for improvement. The plan is to take my time to get as much info as possible on maintaining a terrarium, i've actually been have a tremendous amount of fun just setting it up and growing the ficus and pothos. Again thank you for the help.

 

[Allen Whitaker]

What to feed the feeder roaches

So i have decided to go with either roaches or something other than crickets, but have found that making my own feed is very difficult and expensive. Also that the proportions would be hard to get right. My question: Is there any commercial feed that does a really good job, and if not what to feed theses insects.

Also i am having a large amount of trouble uploading photos. They are in jpeg format but i am still unable to upload. I think that the files are too big but am unaware of how to shrink the files. I would really like you guys to see my terrarium and give me suggestions on whether i have enough uvb lighting ect.

Any suggestions on either topic would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dodolah]

So i have decided to go with either roaches or something other than crickets, but have found that making my own feed is very difficult and expensive. Also that the proportions would be hard to get right. My question: Is there any commercial feed that does a really good job, and if not what to feed theses insects.

Also i am having a large amount of trouble uploading photos. They are in jpeg format but i am still unable to upload. I think that the files are too big but am unaware of how to shrink the files. I would really like you guys to see my terrarium and give me suggestions on whether i have enough uvb lighting ect.

Any suggestions on either topic would be greatly appreciated.

upload your image on photobucket.com and link the image to this post.

 

[opihiman]

I was wondering, I have thrown cricket in the fridge to slow them down. so is it possible to store them that way for a short bit (say a week or two).

OPI

 

[Cainschams]

insects dont fair well after bien frozen it turns them to mush the ideal thing is to provide healthy live food items for your cham i keep mine in the basement and smell nor noise bothers me but i think your freezing idea is a bad one if care of insects proves to be to much for you not to be rude but find another hobby

Allen you are going about it the right way. Research x 1000. Ask away and most will be greatful to help you out. A lot of us onhere including myself probably could have done more research before jumping in. There will be tons of chams to choose from when you are ready so dont rush. Get everything PERFECT before you purchase a cham. If you have a certain species in mind get the temps/ humidity and everything else in order and make sure it is going suit your species. Also like dodolah said get a photobucket account and download them there and past the link in your thread. I would also start a new thread so more people will see it.

 

[opihiman]

Has anyone tried refridgeration to store crickets? sorry to be persistent.

OPI