Crickets & mealworms gut loading

[tdadarwala]

I have a bearded dragon and we raise our own mealworms in oatmeal and carrots for food form them. We raise the crickets with cricket food.

Can you place the vitamin powder in the mealworm tanks and cricket tanks and them feed them to chams?

Basically have the food eat the d3 and other vitamins, and then fed them to the chams?

 

[ferretinmyshoes]

We actually do not know if the vitamins remain viable after being eaten by crickets, so it's not really a good bet that it would be sufficient. Too much calcium in the food will actually kill crickets. If you think about how much of the dust a cricket would chose to eat, vs how much is on them when you dust them, I don't think it would be very efficient, or effective even if it did work by them eating it first.

Oatmeal and carrots are not a complete diet, in fact neither of those are terribly good choices for staples. And what kind of "cricket food" do you use? Most commercial cricket food is vastly deficient in the nutrients you want.

Good gutloading is essential to good health and it should always include a variety of fresh veggies. The main staple to any gutload should be dark leafy greens like collard, mustard, turnip greens, dandelions, endives, and escarole. These are all high in calcium which is what you want in a good gutload. The link in my signature has nutritional info on commonly available fruits and veggies. Aim for those higher in calcium than phosphorus and avoid oxalates and goitrogens.

Sandrachameleon has a great blog on gutloading facts and tips!

 

[sandrachameleon]

I have a bearded dragon and we raise our own mealworms in oatmeal and carrots for food form them. We raise the crickets with cricket food.

Can you place the vitamin powder in the mealworm tanks and cricket tanks and them feed them to chams?

Basically have the food eat the d3 and other vitamins, and then fed them to the chams?

Crickets that injest calcium supplement tend to die off quickly. Better to dust them just prior to feeding off. Also, try not to let mealworms make up more than 10% of your chameleons diet. Other options include butterworms, terrestrial isopods, roaches, silkworms... And I agree the carrots and oats are inadequate for gutloading.