How do you water your crickets?

[Clayton0520]

How do y’all water your crickets? Also I’m gut loading with cricket crack, do I feed it dry? At the moment I have dry cricket crack and Flukers cricket quencher. Is this right? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated guys and gals.

 

[Capsicums&Reptiles]

I usually hydrate my crickets by giving them fresh fruits such as mangos.

I've never used either of the gutloads you mentioned,but,I've read that flukers isn't a very good gutload.

I like to gutload my crickets and other feeders with fresh greens,fruits,carrots and bee pollen.

 

[Clayton0520]

Right on, good to know. So you don’t use any water you just use the water in the fresh veggies and fruits? Is that right?

 

[CamoChameleonsHuman]

This may be taboo but I put the orange flukers calcium gel in for water. Along with bee pollen and bug burger

 

[Kaizen]

As long as you provide moisture with their food they’ll be fine. I’ve always used repashy superload mixed up with water to the consistency of toothpaste, plus collards, oranges and dandelion. I’ve used cricket quencher as a water source, but it far rather my feeders get nutrients along with their water, rather than whatever gel they use to make those water cubes.

 

[Kaizen]

This may be taboo but I put the orange flukers calcium gel in for water. Along with bee pollen and bug burger

Who cares about taboo? I like your ‘keep it simple stupid’ regimen. My guess is that the bee pollen and bug burger are doing most of the heavy lifting in that trifecta, though.

 

[Clayton0520]

This is all great info, I really appreciate it.

 

[Clayton0520]

I’m all for “keep it simple”!

 

[snitz427]

We dont use water (always ends up spilled somehow). We make our own frozen gutload from various veggies and fruit, plus bug burger. That’s got a good moisture content. We also put orange slices in for additional moisture.

 

[Daesie11]

We dont use water (always ends up spilled somehow). We make our own frozen gutload from various veggies and fruit, plus bug burger. That’s got a good moisture content. We also put orange slices in for additional moisture.

What sort of ratios do you use for your frozen gut load? I just made my first batch in preparation for my chams arrival on Thursday, I did carrots, sweet potatoes, mango, and parsley and added a bit of water for consistency, but it still ended up being a weird texture and I'm not sure if it's going to freeze well. The mango was also not ripe by any means, so there wasnt a lot of moisture there

 

[Beman]

I use a dry gutload like u do and then I have a little dish with water that has a sponge in it. It came with my cricket pen.

 

[snitz427]

Not much science behind how we do it. Sometimes we just throw it in the blender... the crickets dont care if its a pile of slop or perfect frozen shapes.

If we mix bug burger directly in with the chopped food it will hold a better shape when frozen. I usually cut the water content a little when we do that.

Lately we have used papaya, papaya seeds, collards, carrots, spirulina, and bug burger - plus orange slices. Next time around we will sub in sweet potato, mango, greens and spurulina.

I wonder if anyone has tried acai berry. Its similiar to blue berry, so maybe not a great gutload but it is full of nutrients for humans!

 

[jamest0o0]

Did I hear people talking about keeping things simple in this thread? I better put a stop to this

 

[snitz427]

, I did carrots, sweet potatoes, mango, and parsley and added a bit of water for consistency, but it still ended up being a weird texture and I'm not sure if it's going to freeze well. The mango was also not ripe by any means, so there wasnt a lot of moisture there

Yea those are pretty crumbly, drier veggies. The fruit and greens will even it out and definitely make it wetter... but the bug burger helps most with our consistency. We dont feed more than they’lle at in a day, so even if the consistency sucks, they’ll still clean up the mess.

 

[jamest0o0]

Not much science behind how we do it. Sometimes we just throw it in the blender... the crickets dont care if its a pile of slop or perfect frozen shapes.

If we mix bug burger directly in with the chopped food it will hold a better shape when frozen. I usually cut the water content a little when we do that.

Lately we have used papaya, papaya seeds, collards, carrots, spirulina, and bug burger - plus orange slices. Next time around we will sub in sweet potato, mango, greens and spurulina.

I wonder if anyone has tried acai berry. Its similiar to blue berry, so maybe not a great gutload but it is full of nutrients for humans!

I use blue berries quite often, just not a whole lot in comparison to the greens

 

[snitz427]

I use blue berries quite often, just not a whole lot in comparison to the greens

Actually I think I recall blueberries being a recommended fruit treat for veileds (mine won’t touch anything but kale). I’ll have to look into the acai thing as I have some packets in the freezer. Boujie crickets!

 

[Daesie11]

Yea those are pretty crumbly, drier veggies. The fruit and greens will even it out and definitely make it wetter... but the bug burger helps most with our consistency. We dont feed more than they’lle at in a day, so even if the consistency sucks, they’ll still clean up the mess.

Yeah, as I was getting it together I was grumbling at myself for not keeping juicier produce in my house to be fair though, I'm in Colorado so we haven't gotten many ripe tropical fruits here yet.

 

[snitz427]

Try frozen if you are having trouble. It will have extra moisture as it thaws, though, so you’ll have to account for that or you’ll have the opposite problem heh

 

[cham_urchin]

the spirulina i've seen in the supplements section is mega $$..... anybody know of a cheaper source? Turtle pellets?

 

[Zevil]

I use potatoes, carrots or oranges for their water source. Nothing fanciful though.