Gutload vs. Feeding

[camshaft]

Is there a difference between gutloading and feeding your feeders?

I have about 500 crickets right now that I plan on feeding to my cham when he arrives next week, I also feed them to my frogs. I have them in a large container and feed them gutload foods (kale, carrot, flukers orange cube, etc). They go through the fairly expensive flukers orange pretty quick. Should I segment a small number of them off in smaller enclosure and feed them gutload while feeding the large "colony" something else?

 

[fluxlizard]

Something people don't really talk about is long term feeding of insects does have an impact on their nutritional value. Especially insects that grow on good feed, and not just adult insects fed good feed for a while.

Sorry I can't cite the source I read it long ago.

 

[sandrachameleon]

Is there a difference between gutloading and feeding your feeders?

For me, there is no difference at all. I feed all my bugs well, all the time.

I do not consider the flukers stuff to be a good gutload, and personally think my money is better spent on real foods.

 

[boj3434]

You can do that if you want if you have a ton which 500 is a decent amount but they will die off somewhat quickly. I gutload all the time but it doesnt consist of all fruits and veggeis i use a mix or my own but its mainly just some fluckers high cal and some baby ceral.

 

[Metric]

i have two identical cricket containers that i made myself, both have ventilation via screen on the top and 4 sides and each bin has a computer fan attached to sucking air out.

I filled both these containers with 500 crickets of the same size in each and gave each clean egg crates.

Bin 1 was being fed fishflakes/catfood/potatoes ONLY.

bin 2 was being fed a salad of dandelion greens, squash, apples, zucchini, sweet potato, carrots, kale and bokchoy.
gutload

Not only did Bin 1 smell constantly and required more cleaning to keep the smell down, but it also seemed to have much more die offs then bin 2. Of course i didn't perform a perfectly executed scientific trial so my resulted could be inaccurate but the smell+excessive dead crickets was enough for me to NOT want to use a low grade.

what i do now though, is purchase 500 of a size appropriate for feeding, and another 500 that are smaller, by the time im through my appropriate sized crickets my other smaller 500 are big enough to feed.

edit: i forgot to mention, all the crickets bins at all times had water gel/crystals.

 

[camshaft]

I keep all 500 (probably more like 450 after feeding my frogs for one week and some die off) in a large cricket keeper (lee's brand) with some cardboard tubing and such.

I did notice that adding green peppers nearly eradicated the smell. I don't know if the peppers over power the nasty cricket smell, or the peppers keep the crickets themselves from stinking, but I will be putting green peppers in every tank. I'll try other colors of peppers to see if it works as well.

I wonder if crickets get real thirsty if you feed them a habanjero pepper.

I don't think I could keep up with making my own gutload for them. I already spend more time cleaning and caring for the crickets than I do my frogs. Is there another commercial gutload that you think is better than the orange cube? I chose it for its simplicity, nutrition and water in one.

 

[pssh]

Try cricket crack for the dry portion and just use water crystals and diffrent greens/veggies/fruits for the wet portion. You really should have both with the wet food making up a larger portion than the dry.

 

[kinyonga]

fluxlizard said..."Something people don't really talk about is long term feeding of insects does have an impact on their nutritional value"...I always feed and gutload my insects with the same greens and veggies. I have a prehensile-tailed anole...in its cage crickets started reproducing on their own over 5 years ago....so I started putting a dish of those same greens and veggies in that cage every time I fed the omnivorous/vegetarian reptiles and the crickets in the cricket containers. The anole has done well...so I would assume that the crickets in his cage are healthy. He's been with me for over 10 years now and had been owned by someone else before me. Once in a long while I do add a few adult crickets though when the ones in the cage haven't grown big enough for him.

(I also have a perpetual supply of superworms in my three-keeled box turtles' cage that has been there for about 6 years.)