Veggies to feed crickets - your opinion wanted!

[dannigrrl]

Let's collaborate! Give your opinions on what vegetables/fruits are best to gut load crickets. I want to give Pablo the most variety of nutrition possible and hopefully other people can get inspired too as well share suggestions.

I use:

orange - my crickets seem to gravitate towards this over anything else
yam
apple
potato
tomato
carrot
banana - this tends to get stinky really fast

what does everyone else use?
are red peppers okay to use? I've never heard of them being used to gut load so I'm hesitant to use them.

 

[kinyonga]

I use dandelions, kale, collards, endive, escarole, mustard greens, carrots, squash, zucchini, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, celery leaves, etc. I don't use fruit normally. IMHO tomatoes and banana are not good to use, just as spinach and cruciferous veggies are frowned upon.

 

[Ryan123]

mine get mini wheats for treats and they LOVE them but only once a month or so......just a treat thats all...... they usually eat bananas, apples, carrots, celery, SWEET POTATOE (thats a favorite) YELLOW GREEN ORANGE AND RED PEPPERS lettuce GRAPES....if you can find GRAPPLES they DEVOUR them they are grape morphed apples they taste amazing an my crickets LOVE them.....i also give them this dry flukers stuff like flakes, greens they will eat almost everything oranges lots of citrus

 

[chameleon97]

Stop using Tomato immediately.

-Steve

 

[Zen Reptiles]

I use the pulp from when I make juice - unless I use cucumber.

I heard cucumber prevents them from breeding, but never looked into it, anyone know?

My juices usually have a wiiiiiiiiide variety of fruits and veggies, basically everything you could name throughout the course of 10 days.

edit: Can someone explain why tomatos, spinach, cruciferous veggies and bananas are bad to use?

 

[Ryan123]

tomatoes are toxic thats why you cant feed wild horn worms to your chameleons

 

[pssh]

Spinach is bad because it blocks calcium receptors or something... Here is a veggie nutrition chart. http://www.guinealynx.info/diet_vegs.html


And here is a chart for fruits: http://www.guinealynx.info/diet_fruit.html



A chart for listed by amount of calcium:
http://www.guinealynx.info/diet_order-cal.html



And a chart based on ca to p.
http://www.guinealynx.info/diet_ratio.html

 

[dannigrrl]

good thing I started this thread, I had no idea about tomatoes... gosh stuff is complicated!

 

[jannb]

My chams like to eat apple, strawberry, grapes and banana. Is banana not good for them????

 

[Ryan123]

thanks kara but yeah tomatoes are HORRIBLE

 

[Ryan123]

bananas are fine thats what dubias eat ALOT of

 

[pssh]

Sure, sure.

 

[sandrachameleon]

dandelion leaves, squash, carrot, yam, orange, collard greens, alfalfa sprouts, mustard greens, pomegranet, kale, romaine, apple, peas, blueberries, raspberries, sunflower sprouts, ... avoid broccoli and spinach

Its the tomatoe leaves and greenery that is toxic. the fruit is essentially safe (but high acid so okay to skip using it).

These arent veggies, but they are good to use as gutload along side the fruits and veg
spirulina; dried seaweed/kelp/dulse; bee pollen; dried alfalfa; organic raw sunflower seeds; unhulled sesame seeds; hemp seed; dehydrated cranberry powder; beet powder; zucchini powder; kale powder; fig powder...

 

[Ryan123]

i remember we could get hemp seed for my parrot but they dont sell that anymore

 

[panthercham]

For fruit and veg I use orange, kale, apple, carrots, zucchini, dandelion, sweet potato, collard greens and romaine.

I also use spirulina, bee pollen, sun dried seaweed and kelp (not oven baked dried as it looses a lot of its nutrients) hemp seeds and sprouted pumpkin and sunflower seeds. I also throw in a few Gogi berries now and again.

I recently found a packet of super salad greens in the local health food shop which contains organic raw sprouted pumpkin seeds, sprouted sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, chia seeds, spirulina, chlorella, dulse and kelp leaf - all organic and sprouted and packed ful of nutrients. To this I add some Camu Camu fruit powder or Acai fruit powder and the feeders love it.

 

[Syn]

Broccoli, spinach, as well as a couple other things contain higher amounts of oxalates, which bind to calcium to prevent absorption.

if you can find GRAPPLES they DEVOUR them they are grape morphed apples they taste amazing an my crickets LOVE them....

The local grapples are just normal apples injected with grape juice. I suggest reading the ingredients.

I just find it a fun fact for people to know.

This Patent Pending process is complex and the ingredient mix primarily includes concentrated grape flavor and pure water. ... There is nothing but flavor being infused into the apple. ... They are not genetically altered in any way.

Source: http://www.grapplefruits.com/

Also, after checking http://www.grapplefruits.com/nutrition.html out, it says "artificial flavor".. but they aren't specific as to what. Uh oh!