Vita-bugs? Anyone tried these?

greenflagreptiles

greenflagreptiles

New Member
I was thinking of trying vitabugs for my chams main meal. They are by timberline and claim they are full vitamin/mineral carriers. They are more expensive than crix, and i still plan to dust and gutload.

Worth it, or waste of money? Im feeding 3 approx 5 month old mouths attached to panther bodies :)
 
Someone has posted about this before.. I get my crix from petco, and they have been selling these for while. They look the same to me, except they are a few cents more expensive.. So hopefully they are better for the chams, my guess is they are probably just about the same.

I wonder if anyone has done any kind of actual test to see if there is any difference.
 
I have seen those too and wondered if all they were, were properly gutloaded insects. So I passed on them because I hate to pay people to do things I can do myself. Maybe in a pinch if I ran out of bugs or forgot to gutload ahead of time but that is the only benefit I can see. If I gut load my own I know what my cham is eating.
 
Never heard of them. but if they are just gutloaded crix, do it yourself properly. anyone can slap a fancy name on something and sell it for more. doesn't mean it is worth the money. gutload your own crix and yourself while your at it. ridgebax1 has it right.
 
I'm guessing these are a can of bugs of some type? If so, absolutely not..

A varied and well gutloaded diet of LIVE insects should be supplied to your chameleon.

There are several options of live insects available out there, many of which can be purchased through our sponsors.

As for gutloading, please check out forum member Sandrachameleons blogs. They are an invaluable gutloading resource which is always being updated.
 
No they are not canned. They are live crix. Just advertised as better/healthier/raised better. Like I said earlier, it could be just a name to raise the price a few cents per cricket..

I still stick with my Cricket Crack for gutloading on top of the Vita bugs..

If you look at the display at petco, they have two frogs. One who was feed the "Vita Bugs" and one on regular bugs... Pretty much looks like the same frog to me with a little photoshop....

haha then again I work in advertising so I could be a bit bias.
 
Bugs are only as good as what they are gutloaded with, for the most part at least.

Since they are crickets, they would be no different than any other cricket of the same species.
 
ghann.com is my favorite place to get crickets. They are the very hardy banded crickets. Never have any die on me in my shipments and they always come on time. Plus they are like half the price of most cricket suppliers. But they only have supers and crickets...
 
I buy the vita bugs, not because of any claim to be pre-gutloaded or any such silliness, but because I have found them to be loads healthier than the crickets I can pick up anywhere else locally. Always check the packaging for cleanliness and a water cube, fyi, to make sure they are "fresh", so to speak. I take them home and properly gutload before feeding them off. They can live several weeks versus the instant die off that starts with crickets from my other sources.

It's all about care and cleanliness. If you have a good cricket source, don't waste your money. If not, you might give them a try.
 
I finally found someone (other than a reseller of vitabugs) doing a feeding trial with them. Brian Barchzk of BHB reptiles has 3 groups of 12each juvi beardies.

Group one is fed just dusted crickets. Group two is fed just gut loaded crix. Group three is fed vitabugs and twice a week calciworms.

The vitabug group has phenomenal growth and health/colors compared to the other two. Then the dusted crix and finally the gut load group. (He didnt say what he gut fed with....so taking that with a grain of salt.)

Im going to try vitabugs for my next order, mostly hoping their healthier and i have less die off.
 
What the heck? why is he going through all the trouble and then spoiling his results with the worms? The improvement could just be from those as they are very nutritious... To make things a fair trial he needs to feed his other groups the worms.
 
Vita-bugs

greenflagreptiles said:
I was thinking of trying vitabugs for my chams main meal. They are by timberline and claim they are full vitamin/mineral carriers. They are more expensive than crix, and i still plan to dust and gutload.

Worth it, or waste of money? Im feeding 3 approx 5 month old mouths attached to panther bodies :)
Click to expand...

Vita-bugs are crickets that have a better nutrient content because of the diet they are fed. They are NOT gut-loaded. Unfortunately many gut-loading diets are poorly designed/manufactured although there are good ones out there. If you are feeding just crickets you'll need to either gut-load or dust with calcium (and provide appropriate lighting) as they do not contain additional calcium but they do contain more carotenoids, vitamin E and essentially fatty acids than a normal cricket. This is done by altering the diet they are fed as they grow. While not true for all nutrients insect nutrient content can be easily be altered by the diet they are fed while growing (there is tons of published research in that area). You can find an overview of Vita-bugs at http://www.timberlinefisheries.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1936 . I can answer more technical questions that anybody might have. Full disclosure I am the one that developed these feeder insects.
 
Brian of BHB Reptiles did an experiment with Vitabugs. He fed three group of bearded dragons of the same age and lineage. One group was fed dusted crickets; the second group Vitabugs; and the third, gut loaded crickets. The Vitabug fed group showed better growth and color. Check out his current episode of Snakebytes TV on YouTube, "Snakes in Chicago" for more information.
 
I have used the vitabugs before, but did not see any notable improvement over standard crix. The only real difference (and not a good one IMO) was that the large vitabugs made A LOT of noise, while the other crix I can get here in town are most often silent. This may just be that they are more mature, But I don't like chirping crix when I am trying to sleep.
 
Bugguy said:
Vita-bugs are crickets that have a better nutrient content because of the diet they are fed. They are NOT gut-loaded. Unfortunately many gut-loading diets are poorly designed/manufactured although there are good ones out there. If you are feeding just crickets you'll need to either gut-load or dust with calcium (and provide appropriate lighting) as they do not contain additional calcium but they do contain more carotenoids, vitamin E and essentially fatty acids than a normal cricket. This is done by altering the diet they are fed as they grow. While not true for all nutrients insect nutrient content can be easily be altered by the diet they are fed while growing (there is tons of published research in that area). You can find an overview of Vita-bugs at http://www.timberlinefisheries.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1936 . I can answer more technical questions that anybody might have. Full disclosure I am the one that developed these feeder insects.
Click to expand...

So for all intents and purposes if we were raising our own crickets we could, by improving their base diet, create our own similarly nutritious bug.
 
Ninkylou said:
So for all intents and purposes if we were raising our own crickets we could, by improving their base diet, create our own similarly nutritious bug.
Click to expand...

I was thinking that too.
If we have our cricks from when they are little nymphs, and have always given them a good diet, arent we creating our own Vita-bugs?
 
Lathis said:
I buy the vita bugs, not because of any claim to be pre-gutloaded or any such silliness, but because I have found them to be loads healthier than the crickets I can pick up anywhere else locally. Always check the packaging for cleanliness and a water cube, fyi, to make sure they are "fresh", so to speak. I take them home and properly gutload before feeding them off. They can live several weeks versus the instant die off that starts with crickets from my other sources.

It's all about care and cleanliness. If you have a good cricket source, don't waste your money. If not, you might give them a try.
Click to expand...

Do u still dust the vita bugs?
 
I still dust them. I tend to get a few packages of them right after the store received shipments. I throw away the little green cube and use my own gutload. We do this for our Whites Tree Frogs as well.
 
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