Live locusts in USA

Brodybreaux25

Brodybreaux25

Chameleon Enthusiast
i want to buy some live locusts for my charms but from what I've recently read it is illegal to ship them into the USA. Haven't found them online and in country so does any one know a breeder/enthusiast that sells them in the USA.

Not that I would ever try this my self, but has anyone ever tried to buy them out of country and successfully shipped in? Hypothetically of course....
 
So what your saying is there is a demand for these that isn't being met?

What kind of grasshopper or locust is this? A "Carolina" locust? There are a billion of them in my yard right now, I live in southeast Louisiana.
 

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Brodybreaux25 said:
So what your saying is there is a demand for these that isn't being met?

What kind of grasshopper or locust is this? A "Carolina" locust? There are a billion of them in my yard right now, I live in southeast Louisiana.
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Seems to me that you have money to make here! Wish I had a screen cage full of them to try my hand on breeding them! And I am sure a bunsh of other chameleon keepers here would feel the same!
 
I would love some different bugs, seems like we have the same crickets, roaches, worms, etc. There has to be more bugs Chams can eat than the ~10 we see over and over!
 
The insects you are wanting are probably all considered serious agricultural pests, so commercial producers who might want to breed them would have to go through major hoops with local, state, and federal agricultural agencies before offering them. I doubt there's enough of a market for them and the USDA would probably not permit them. The main reason you see the "big 10" is that they are easy enough to breed, ship, and keep on a large scale, there's a market to make them profitable, and maybe because the classification of pest is low enough.
 
I actually have a USDA and state permit to breed and ship giant Schistocerca grasshoppers in my home state of California. However I have always supplemented my colonies during the summer with wild caught lineages to keep my breeding stock going strong. The last couple year due to terrible collecting conditions and my chameleons fondness for Schistocerca hoppers my colony is not going at the moment. I think I have one or two Schistocerca nitens. However I want to start the larger breeding colony breeding and going again, I apologize people outside of California as I cannot ship there. However I sell grasshopper breeding/care sheets you can pm me about. You can start colonies of grasshoppers similar to breeding colonies of roaches. These care sheets can be used for other species other than genus Schistocerca.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich
 
You cannot ship outside of you state and definitely not outside the country, unless you have specific permits. And you cannot ship outside the state to someone who does not have a permit to import said insect and keeps it up to date. Shipping within the state you can do to anyone from what I know as long as you have a permit the other person doesn't need one. I have been looking into getting permits for shipping outside my state and within my state. But the certain species of local grasshopper I have caught personally need a diapause for a few weeks if not month.

You also have to make sure you collect from safe places.
 
Andee said:
You cannot ship outside of you state and definitely not outside the country, unless you have specific permits. And you cannot ship outside the state to someone who does not have a permit to import said insect and keeps it up to date. Shipping within the state you can do to anyone from what I know as long as you have a permit the other person doesn't need one. I have been looking into getting permits for shipping outside my state and within my state. But the certain species of local grasshopper I have caught personally need a diapause for a few weeks if not month.

You also have to make sure you collect from safe places.
Click to expand...

Thanks Andee

When shipping in state the party I am shipping too. They have to have a copy of the state permit that allows me to ship to them sent with the grasshoppers. There are some species that require diapauses to hatch and some that do not. It really depends on the species. I am alert to the detail to only collect from safe places. I occasionally collect on my families old 275 acre ranch.

Best Regards
Jeremy A. Rich
 
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Oh I didn't know about the copy stuff.... I wonder if that's what they meant when shipping to other states as well? (legal wording causes headaches when trying to read) And honestly trying to find the answers to what I exactly want answered on the agricultural website is a pain in the butt. Too many links that don't lead to where they should >.< it's taken me several days to find what I posted. So maybe I read it wrong? Omg.... that means I will have to go back in D8 so scarey .___.
 
What if the specific species of locust to be shipped is native to both the buyers state and the sellers state or the continental United States for that matter? Still a no go?
 
I mean you can eventually get an export permit I think, but you can only do what I assume would be states that don't have really specific bans on feeder insects (so no florida, hawaii etc.) but export permits for agricultural pests costs several hundred dollars I think every year to update? (don't quote me on these things because I have looked it up in a while and may have read it wrong then)... I was originally looking it up for importing reasons generally too, I was most interested in how to get pill millipedes later down the road. Which will take not only permits on my end but also working with either a UC, a zoo, or something similar.
 
Yep. Looks like I'll just have to keep all these locusts for myself! Such a shame!;)

Just gave my veiled a katydid for the first time, he jumped across three branches to get to that thing. That was awesome.

Now I understand why everyone wants these things as feeders, They can move!
 
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