"Organic" Garden Crickets

[Crashbandit05]

I was pulling weeds for my in-laws and noticed a lot of black crickets varying in different sizes. In-laws only grow organic, don't use pesticides, only water with fresh mineral water from tapped from the mountain, and live in the mountains in the middle of nowhere away from noise/smog/pollution/etc. I literally saw what I am convinced to be a "bigfoot" print about 2 miles behind their property following their spring branch up the old abandoned logging trail.

Anyways, I do not have my chameleon yet as I am still piecing the supplies together to save money in the long run. I have read the threads about wild caught insects and the potential risk of parasites. I imagine since the crickets eat the random squash, pototoes, beans, etc; they are essentially being gut loaded. Would this be an ok and sparingly alternative to store bought feeders?

 

[reptileguy112]

Most likely its fine but I would just put them in a plastic tub with a couple orange slices and a shallow dish (like the water catchers you put under a plant pot) and put some moist potting mix in there. In a few days remove the soil with the dish and put it in a new plastic container (or just remove the crickets) and a week or two you should have a bunch of babies. Feed them round up cat food, lettuce, apple chunks, orange, etc until they are the size you want. Good luck

 

[Dro B]

I used to collect crickets and hatch thier eggs, but I've always been paranoid about feeding wild crickets because I've seen articles saying that even captive crickets can have parasites.

 

[JaxyGirl]

Those are called field crickets. I guess it's really a matter of opinion but I feel that wild insects are prob the best food source for my chameleons. They are pact with nutrition that cultivated crickets just don't have. (There are no pesticides around my house) I actually keep some boards on the ground by my house and gather the crickets up in the morning and feed them to my chams. They just love them!! I also collect wild grasshoppers and moths.
Winters are long in Maine so I try to give my chams the best nutritious insects while they're available which in my opinion are insects that chams would naturally eat in the wild.

 

[JaxyGirl]

I also wanted to add that I remove the jumping legs from the wild caught grasshoppers and crickets because they are a lot harder and sharper then a cultivated cricket and could harm a chams sensitive mouth. I also rinse field collected insects off before feeding them to my chams and I leave some water on the insects for a little extra hydration for my chams.

 

[Crashbandit05]

Thanks for the replies JaxyGirl, I do not intent on breeding them (haven't even gotten my cham yet) just had an idea that these wild crickets might be a better alternative than captive bred crickets.

 

[Andee]

Whatever you do don't leave a field cricket in the cage with cham. In fact I would just hand feed a field cricket. They are veracious eaters and tend to chew on your chameleon more than any other cricket I have heard of. They also tend to take huge bites out of your cham, so where it might just be a little bite from a store bought cricket, it'll be down to the bone from a field cricket. If you search on google all sorts of horror stories will be brought up with black/field crickets. I'm not saying don't feed them, I'm just saying be super careful with them ^^. Wild caught feeders are great and nutritious.

As for the parasite thing, all crickets have the ability to carry parasites, in fact all insects do, just crickets are more prone to it for some reason from what I understand. I would just get regular fecals done if you feed wild-caught, around every 6 months. I do.

 

[Crashbandit05]

Thanks for the info Andee, I know I just joined and my post count is low (again, doesn't really amount to anything) but I've been reading this forum for quite a while. Fecals are a great idea, I can actually do them at my work. I am pretty knowledgeable on dewormers, parasites, etc as I have worked in animal welfare for several years and have been vaccinating cats and dogs for a while. We also have a decent microscope that we use to perform fecals with and all the supplied floats and whatnot. We had a bad case of whipworm go through the kennels a few months back. Very interesting to see what different parasites look like under magnification!