Locust vs Crickets - Pygmy Cham help

[gary1621]

I need some help please.

This applies to those who keep Pygmies and have used locust/prey that climbs as a staple feeder.

I'd prefer to use locust over crickets, and have done for the last two weeks. I think they're much safer for my chams then crickets as they wont take a chunk out of them while they are sleeping.

I find them much easier to handle and dust too.

The thing is... there are loads of uneatten bugs in the enclosure... the numbers do go down or i'd have a load more in there then there is, but i'm still worried.

Do pygmys only shoot prey that is on the ground?

The locust climb the whole enclosure and prefer to walk around the branches instead of staying on the ground.

Will they take out the climbers?

I really look forward to hearing everyones words of wisdom, thanks

 

[gary1621]

Bump, hehe

 

[kawabunga2002]

i would go for the crickets, there smaller prey and spend more time on the ground.
In locust they will lose intrest after some time + de legs of the locust are not good for the transit.

Always clean your enclosure well, take out dead prey daily, they are a paradise for germs.
and never give to many prey, its better to give less prey but more frequently.

 

[OldSkoolxReasons]

My pygmy love the locust and grasshoppers I catch in the summer that are small enough. They also love the freshly hatched ones that hatch out periodically for me in the winer too. They will shoot prey on sticks. I have locust and grasshoppers in their cages almost at all times. They never seem to over eat however because they locusts and grasshopper camouflage themselves better and force the pygmies to search for them/. The crickets just walk around on the ground and when they are in the cage the pygmies just sit a couple inches off the ground and stare at it even if there are no crickets. The pygmies get tired of crickets real fast for me though as well as locust. I switch them up between regular crickets, baby wild black crickets that I breed, baby grasshoppers, baby locusts, young hornworms, young silkworms, mealworms, dubia nymphs, discoid nymphs, and house flies. normally they don't have such a variety but everything seems to be hatching at the same time and I am just being prepared for my clutch of 5 eggs that one of my panthers produced. The pyg's aren't picky and will eat almost anything I offer.


Justin


P.S. Just put a lid to a deli cup on the bottom of the cage with cricket food and they will eat that at night and not your chams. Thats what I do and my pygmies haven't been marked by the evil crickets yet.

 

[gary1621]

Thank you so much for replying! Appreciate it loads. I thought i was starving them because i wasnt offering them what they would normally eat.

Today i did a little test.

I have some 1/4 crickets and some equal sized locust. I dusted both so the looked pretty much the same, ghost like

I put the locust to the ground first and watched. They started moving around and generally heading for higher ground. Pygmy interest = nothing.

I then added the crickets. BAM, the female was down and hot tailing it around catching them. The male was very lazy, didnt move very much but he took two out in front of me (i've never caught him before).

Thought to myself ok, i'll switch it up weekly and see how it goes.

So im standing there still watching, amazed and impressed with my little ones feeding for me when the male takes out a... locust! Why didnt he do it before and ease some of my worry?!

Still, I'm gonna switch it up a bit and do the crickets for now. I like the idea of keeping the food for the crickets contained. So far i have it out on the floor and it doesnt look all that nice... but saying that, the louse probably like it being out as do the springtails

Ok, another quick question

Fly size... house flies are pretty much the same and greenbottle flies right?!

 

[OldSkoolxReasons]

I've heard green bottle flies are like 1/2 or 13 the size of blue bottle which are like 2 or 3 times the size of house flies so they are probably the same size as house flies. I know they are small enough for a pygmy to eat, just don't know the exact size. I just culture house flies. Yeah the food on the ground doesn't look the greatest, I guess you could use a bottle cap upside down and make it level with the substrate so its just a 1 inch section where the food is so it doesn't make it look bad. The moss has all but grown over my cricket food spot anyways. lol. Maybe the movement of the crickets stimulated him to go into hunt mode and he noticed the locust cuz he was actually looking for food. Crickets do move quite a bit more and are good if your pygmies hunt by movement. Mine just seem to shoot at food randomly as they walk, kinda like a cross over in basketball. They are just walking along looking the other way and them wham they turn their heads and nail a bug. They are so entertaining.


Justin