Every Tried Freezing Live Crickets???

[JaxyGirl]

I started freezing my live crickets

What I do is order 1000 crickets at a time. As soon as I get them I put the unopened shipping box in my fridge for 5 to 10 min...long enough to knock the crickets out a bit...but still alive. Put in fortified Cricket chow..and enough good greens and fixings to gut load. Tape up the shipping box and put them in an area so that they can warm up and eat like little pigs for a day. Then put the box in the freezer for an hour or so until the crickets are frozen. Then I can easily scoop them up like frozen peas and put them into individual Zip-Lock freezer bags. I put about 100 or so in each bag instead of one big bag so they don't get crushed.

THE Crickets Stay individually Frozen even in a freezer bag! NOW..when I want to feed my reps I go to the the freezer, open a bag, and take out a 5-10 crickets as needed and let them defrost for about 5 mins or so. They defrost into perfect little individual crickets (that look alive) same color and texture of a live cricket, antennas attached and all their legs intact. I can still dust and fortify the crickets. "Triton" my Jackson's loves them...so do my beardies and fish. They seriously don't know the difference between a thawed cricket or a live one!!! Great for Chams that are willing to be hand fed.

 

[pssh]

Or you can use mainly silkworms with crickets once or twice a week and some super worms and roaches once or twice a week. Then they get to hunt and they get variety. And you hardly have to deal with the crickets.

 

[JaxyGirl]

Hi,
I've tried roaches and I just can't touch them...they give me the willys...can't get past it and I don't want to breed them.

I do give silk worms, wax worms or phenox worms, a couple of times a week..but I don't want to breed them either. I don't like super worms or meal worms.

Cricket's are pretty much the main staple and I can't stand the mess and stench so I came up with the solution of freezing them. See above post and it works great for me and my reps. No mess, no dead crickets, no waste. If my reps are Happy and Healthy then I'm Happy

 

[pudge]

I think its a good idea

 

[warpdrive]

Hi,

they might not know the difference, but feeding dead and not so well gutloaded crickets just can't be good in the long run.

crickets in general don't smell.
I don't care what anyone says, my crickets don't smell at all.

I keep about 250-500 crickets at all times for my two panthers and they don't smell in my 10 gal fishtank.
why don't they smell you ask...well I take the 2 mins required to clean the keeper twice a week.
in fact, it's closer to 1 min in order to clean the fish tank...it takes me longer to gutload them with chopped up fruits and veggies.

smelly crickets are like smelly hamsters...poor keeping causes it.
if people wait a week or more to clean the cricket keeper then yes they will smell.

Harry

 

[pssh]

Mine don't smell either... I don't even clean the tank very often and keep about twoo hundred at a time...

 

[james L]

this sounds like a good idea if you were going to use them for fishing bait, not for reptile food.

 

[slowfoot]

I believe freezing actually destroys a lot of the nutrition in the crickets. I could be mistaken, but I know that pre-frozen foods are not recommended for other lizards like blue tongue skinks.

 

[DJ Richey Rich]

They do it with pink mice for snakes when I freeze my food I'm not losing any nutrition I'm a GYM trainer and for health I make smoothies vegetables and fruit don't lose any nutrition. I think its a great idea if u buy mini crickets they will always be mini crickets worms will be the size u got them as long as u gut load them before freezing it is no different then canned crickets that zoo med offers. This is just my opinion the only knowledge i have on it is the human health classes I took to become a trainer so my opinion is just words.

 

[pssh]

But the canned crickets aren't as nutritious. You didn't gutload them yourself for the specific reptile you're feeding. So scratch that. I also think that hunting down crickets is a great thing for your reptiles to do. In the wild they hunt them down, they dont just sit on a small tree all day hoping that big scary person in bright colors doesn't come back.

I think live food is far superior, though I also like cup feeding for when I dont have time to make sure all the food is eaten. I very much dislike chasing down crickets at the end of the day.

 

[Klinger]

freezing crickets

I just recently refrigerated...and then froze about 150 fresh dead crickets to feed to my Bearded dragon. My tree frogs and cham wont touch anything not living that doesnt have the wiggle factor.
I did not plan on feeding this way, but I ordered 2000 crickets and they never warmed up. (Still waiting for the replacements by the way) Weather has been cold here and with the holidays the box was extremely beat up. I just couldnt bear to throw them all out. It was a shame and I was fresh out and a snow storm...scratch that... a Blizzard hit and I couldnt restock. I fed off the fresh to those who needed it
ANyway, my Dragon loved them. But I dont think I would do this on a regular basis. To me fresh is preferred to frozen wheather my food or my herps.
Just my opinion. But it did work in the pinch.

 

[ronnie]

I ordered some locusts and crickets on the 18th and they showed up yesterday(21st) along with a note on receiving live foods in cold weather though the post,it said that the live feed may arrive looking dead but they will in fact come round in about 4 hours after removing from the shipping box,the locusts were fine..the crickets on he other hand had had their chips and about 70% didn't pull though!

 

[Shaboo10]

I freezed my crickets for 6 mins. and most of them died D:

 

[pssh]

Did you not want them to die? You dont stick them in the freezer if you want them to slow down. You refrigerate them for a minute or two.

 

[Shaboo10]

Did you not want them to die? You dont stick them in the freezer if you want them to slow down. You refrigerate them for a minute or two.

Ohhh okay, that makes sense.

 

[LSepkowski]

So if you refrigerate them, they wont jump like lunatics at me?

 

[LSepkowski]

Replying to freezing food though: I agree with Jaxy Girl and DJ Richey. Although I wouldn't take the time to freeze the crickets, the nutritional value would be no different if they were frozen. It actually preserves the nutrients because each day that passes while a fruit-veggie is in the fridge, a it actually looses nutrients. If you freeze the food at it's freshest, you are preserving the nutrients. I actually freeze all of the food I feed to my crickets, like collard greens. It comes in such a large quantity that most of it would rot if I didn't freeze it.
As long as the crickets are gut loaded, I dont see a problem with freezing them. That being said, you should let your guy hunt its food sometimes.

 

[Digby Rigby]

Nutritionally inferior

Frozen foods are nutritionally inferior to fresh foods in both nutrients and taste. Freezing also causes cellular damage. Live foods are freshest and healthiest. To say that fresh fruits lose nutrients over time in the refrigerator is true because picked fruit is dead. So freezing does slow it down. If you have fresh squeeze juice the taste and nutrient quality is superior to frozen from concentrate. The fact that nutrients are damaged is a fact the degree however can vary. Live fresh foods are superior to frozen. Chameleons eat live moving insects and thats what they should be fed, freezing insects is just not right

People who feed frozen foods whether it be insects, or rodents or even fruits and vegetables are merely making some sacrifice in nutrition for perceived convenience and or economy. The degree of nutrional degredation can vary but it does occur. Also gutloading for a short time before feeding off is not the same as feeding the prey items a healthy diet for the duration of their lives before feeding off. Also vitamin supplements are to compensate for deficiencies in food. Any doctor will tell you that getting what you need from a proper diet is superior to vitamin and mineral supplements, however supplements are better than not getting them at all.

Digby Rigby _______________________