Do you feed crickets anything BEFORE the day you gutload them??

[EmanSami]

Lets say I have 1000 crickets and I want to gutload them of course. However, before I do this, is it best to have my main stock of crickets be starving? I want the 1000 crickets to stay alive as long as possible(one month or longer if possible)...

So do i throw in egg cartons and water cubes so they have minimal to survive on before i separate a dozen crickets to gutload the night before? Afterall they can eat the egg carton and get some energy right?

Should I feed them small amounts of dry gutload so they atleast have something to eat? How often?

Does it matter at all if they are starved before gutloading?

Thanks!

 

[ghettomike]

I personally think that keeping them well fed all the time is a good idea to keep them healthy and plump. If you starve them they will be weak and more prone to die off. I would save the 'good gutload' until they are ready to be fed off but would still feed them decent food (fruit and veggie table scraps or cheap dry gutload) to keep them healthy. Even if you take the feeders out and let them go a day without food and then give them a good gutload they will eat it.

 

[lisa h]

A healthy feeder makes for a healthy animal, so I keep my crickets gutloaded (ie well fed) from the moment I get them. In the greater scheme of things, it is not expensive to feed crickets a healthy diet 100% of the time.

 

[Seeco]

Hi Eman. I'd say one day with just water cubes or watery foods (lettuce, orange) is a good way to get them to poop out whatever high protein or high fat feed they are grown on, and rehydrate them from their shipping. After that you should keep them constantly nourished, and maybe super feed them in the 12 hours before offering.

 

[rcutchens]

I purchase crickets from PetCo because they are the only place in town that has the correct size in decent quantities. I'm pretty sure they don't feed them much of anything before they are purchased but they keep their containiner in the back so I'm not entirely sure. They do pre-bag quanties, generally 25 to 36 at a time and there's nothing in the bags but pieces egg cartons. At Pet Smart they keep their cricket bins out on the floor and they are pretty gross. Rarely if ever cleaned and they smell horrible. I've only ever seen water cubes placed in the bins at Pet Smart so I don't think they feed them much there either. I imagine that whatever they keep them in at PetCo isn't much better.

I keep the crickets on full feed 100% of the time when I get them home and the keeper is cleaned out with food restocked every other day at a minimum. Every day when there's a lot in the keeper because there's just so much more cricket feces. The cricket keeper we use is the large Lee's one and there are four little feeding trays that came with it. I generally keep each tray filled as follows:

- One filled with a green veggie, such as kale
- One filled with either fruit or carrots or even fruit and carrots
- One filled with dry gutload/food such as Cricket Crack and/or oatmeal
- One filled with water crystals

I'm not sure if that's the best way to gutload or not and have wondered if there are better methods.

 

[pssh]

A well fed insect all the time is an overall nutritionally superior animal. If I ate junk food all the time, then starved myself for a day and only ate healthy foods, I still wouldn't be as healthy and what not as if I had just eaten a good diet from the start.

 

[sandrachameleon]

A healthy feeder makes for a healthy animal, so I keep my crickets gutloaded (ie well fed) from the moment I get them. In the greater scheme of things, it is not expensive to feed crickets a healthy diet 100% of the time.

agreed.
Nor will feeding them cause them to die faster than starvation. Dont overfeed, dont underfeed, dont over or under heat and youre done.

A well fed insect all the time is an overall nutritionally superior animal. If I ate junk food all the time, then starved myself for a day and only ate healthy foods, I still wouldn't be as healthy and what not as if I had just eaten a good diet from the start.

interesting way to put it
like

 

[EmanSami]

thanks for the help guys...i just had this notion for some reason that gutloading is only done with 24 hours or less before feeding and therefore i assumed you keep them somewhat hungry beforehand.

 

[gaxmode]

I have a 50 gal tote with main dubia colony (breeders) that I keep water crystals, oranges, apples, yams, cricket crack 24/7, 1 20 gal tote that I use to pick out appropriate or smaller size dubia from breeder tote and feed apples, yams, cricket crack and a plastic bowl with lid that I keep about 50 appropriate size dubias in (this is what I feed from) and stock with apples/yams and cricket crack and just replenish as need from the 20 gal tote.

 

[pssh]

Why separate them if they eat the same thing? Sounds tedious unless you are selling them or something. of course, if you only have one it's probably not bad.

 

[gaxmode]

Have one what? I separate them so I don't have to disrupt the breeding bin everyday... And the 20 gal is for the ones that still need to grow a bit