My first attempt at homemade gut load

[kulbida]

Hey all,

I just tried my first batch of gut load this morning. Any feedback would be appreciated.

-butternut squash
-carrots
-orange
-raw sunflower seeds

I ground up the seeds in my coffee grinder, added with vegetables/fruit into blender and then transferred to an ice cube tray.

Anything I should be doing differently?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Chachi]

I think it sounds great. I dont have a good enough blender for that but i get, say 1 week: bnsquash, turnup greens,papaya, and flax.seed with torn up orange for water. Then i change it up for weeks 2, 3 and 4. Its not bad to feed chams a good staple of crickets if you are varyingbtheir diets enough to let the chams get a little bit of a lot of diff stuff. I feed other stuff but a lot of crickets w diverse diets.

 

[MSMorgan]

I concur with the above. Mix it up with diff. items once in a while and you should do great. I'm not ambitious (ie: smart) enough to mix it all up and put it in an ice tray just yet. For now, I just throw in half an apple, carrot, old (too spotty for me) banana, watermelon rind, orange, dandelion greens, yam or whatever is safe for Lucky when they need food.

 

[Lathis]

One thing I would recommend for the next batch is putting the mix between paper towels and pressing the extra moisture from it before freezing into cubes. This will help prevent the cubes from mildewing when you feed them to the bugs. Making smaller cubes is also helpful - less waste unless you have a lot of bugs. When I used to make cubes, I used the "drier" veggies like squash, carrots, and peppers and dry mix in the cubes and used fresh orange slices for additional moisture.

 

[Bush baby]

I would switch out the carrot or the squash for a dark green leafy vegetable. Being orange vegetables, the squash and the carrot provide similar nutrients, so you don't need both. Switch out one for Turnip, Mustard or Collard Greens which will provide a good amount of calcium.

Additionally, oranges are good SOMETIMES, but not good as a staple for feeders. I've heard that when consumed over a long period of time, they can cause issues for chams due to the citric acid.