Panther not eating crickets

[BigSwaug]

Hey all, my 11 1/2 month old Panther will not eat many, if any crickets. I just bought some smaller ones hoping that will change. Have you guys ever had this? Whats the next best staple other than dubias. I have been threatened by my wife if I bring them in the house..lol

 

[trickedoutbiker]

Whats the next best staple other than dubias. I have been threatened by my wife if I bring them in the house

I feel your pain. Dubias are the only insect my gf says I'm not allowed to get, and ironically, they are one of the best and easiest kept feeders. Wild roaches may be dirty and nasty due to their nature, but a captive-bred roach in a jar is the same as any other insect to me. Just cuz it's a roach, doesn't make it a bad insect. But some people just don't see it that way.....

 

[jcarlsen]

Too bad! Both my girlfriend and I were resistant to getting dubias at first because...EW ROACHES. But I've read they need high temps to even breed, so it's not like if a few got loose, they'd magically start a colony in your house.

My main thing with roaches is that I don't keep more than 20-30 at a time, just in case. In fact, I had an incident where I dropped their container and they got all over the floor, but I managed to grab up every last one of them. Surprisingly, they didn't really run for it. Although, half of them landed on their backs and couldn't right themselves up haha.

Panthers do tend to get a bit picky as they get older. My current problem with mine is that he will not either eat crickets or roaches because he's a worm addict, so I do my best to rotate those out. As it gets warmer, I'm gonna give him a couple days off food so he begins to crave it a bit more and then introduce some crickets or roaches and see.