Gut Load Idea / Question

[DanSB]

I have a centrifugal juicer that I use a quite a bit for making fruit and vegetable juices which always leaves me a with a nice pile of gooey ground up fruit and veggie pulp.

As I was throwing this away thinking about how I really need to start a compost bin for the spring it struck me this would likely make an excellent gut load / food for my crickets.

I guess the question is: Are there any specific fruits or vegetables that would be bad to offer the pulp as a gut load?

I primarily have apple and orange pulp but often juice peaches, pears, berries, and just about anything with juice in it.

 

[ataraxia]

i dont think a single fruit is in the no no list for gut loading.

That would be a good idea on your part also.

 

[sandrachameleon]

I guess the question is: Are there any specific fruits or vegetables that would be bad to offer the pulp as a gut load?

I primarily have apple and orange pulp but often juice peaches, pears, berries, and just about anything with juice in it.

gutloading (and composting too) is Great use of juicer pulp.
In moderation, there's almost nothing that you would drink that would be bad pulp for the bugs. Certainly apple, orange, peach and pear are not bad items to include in your gutload.

 

[Sticktongue]

I just made a batch of gutload in a blender. As soon as i was done my mother was using her juicer and i thought.. why didnt i think of that first!!! Its very wet when you dont and you have to freeze it, then cut it into squares and freeze like that. I think the juicer would be very good

 

[DanSB]

Thanks for the replies! I think I'll give it a go. I just ran out of crickets. I've been using apple carrot and green leaf lettuce.

I was mainly concerned about blueberries. I wonder if I can make blue crix?

 

[sandrachameleon]

A few blueberries are fine as part of a gutload. I've used them occassionally (when in season, though I tend to eat most of what I grow myself!)
they do not turn crickets blue, unfortunately - that would be kewl

I've posted quite a lot of nutritional information on many fruits and vegetables here in my blog: https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/sandrachameleon/nutritional-information/
If you dont see a particular fruit you want to use a lot of, let me know and I'll post that too.
No combo of fruit alone is going to provide all the nutrients you needs - so Remember to round out the nutrients the fruit provides with other gutload items

 

[Chadbot]

I've been wondering a bit about mushrooms. Does anyone think there is any benefit to gutloading with something like a cremini or portobello's? They seem to have pretty high amounts of folates, choline, and betaine, not to mention moisture for the crickies.

 

[sandrachameleon]

I've been wondering a bit about mushrooms. Does anyone think there is any benefit to gutloading with something like a cremini or portobello's? They seem to have pretty high amounts of folates, choline, and betaine, not to mention moisture for the crickies.

If you've got extra and your crickets will eat them, I dont think they'd do any harm in moderation. Crimini are higher in phosphorous than calcium, so you'd have to compensate for that. Crimini provide a little Folate, some Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Potassium, Zinc, Copper, Manganese, Selenium, a little omega6 - and plenty of phosphorous.
Portabella provide Riboflavin, Niacin, Folate, Pantothenic Acid, Potassium, Copper, Manganese, Selenium, and far more Phosphorus than Calcium

 

[Ferdy Timmerman]

Make sure your crickets contain a 2:1 calcium-phosphorus ratio when feeding them to your chameleons. A disbalance can cause decalcification of the skeleton (in the long term). I recently experienced that with one of my chams and it can be a really tough job to correct a mistake like that. A specialised reptile-vet (Marja Kik, Netherlands) advised me to gutload crickets with T-rex cricket diet. After doing so, a cricket will have a ± 1:1 calcium phosphorus ratio, so when dusted with extra calcium, it gets close to the desired 2:1 ratio.