What is your gut load method?

[BigSkyCham]

TL/DR:
Explain how you gut load / handle your feeder insects? Specifically what bins, cups, funnels, tools or tricks you do to keep the bugs under control?

I am curious to know how people gut load their feeders for one or two chameleons? Do you do it in a separate bin? How do you get the amount of bugs needed from the gut load bin into the dusting cup?

I have had my baby panther for 11 days now and I and still learning the management of bugs. I am trying to minimize escaped bugs and also ensure the bugs are properly gut loaded.

This is my current method for banded crickets:

I have a 10 gallon bin with 200 1/4” banded crickets. They have water and feed on supreme gecko dubia/cricket chow.

My gut load bin is a shoebox size bin…I pull a section of egg carton loaded with 50 or so crickets from the 10 gallon bin and put it into the shoebox gut load bin. I am gut loading with frozen pieces of bug burger and some bee pollen. I replenish bug burger/pollen each time I pull the daily dozen from the gut load bin or as needed.

I use a very large bin (50-80gallon tote) as a bug transfer zone. Any escapees that end up in the very large bin and can be dumped back into the colony, gut load bin, or dusting cup.

Bugs my Cham does not eat get fed to the mantis. The mantis isn’t picky at all.

I have a dubia colony that is getting heavier by the day. How do you pull what you need from a dubia bin?

 

[MissSkittles]

This could get quite long, but I’ll try to be brief.
I have 10 insectivores, so do things on a larger scale, but that really shouldn’t matter. I do not gut load. I do keep my bugs well fed so they are healthy and nutritious.
Crickets kept in a very large bin with ventilation added to the sides as well as the top. Egg flats on one side, half a paper plate with food on the other (given fresh food daily). Every few days I move them to a clean bin so their poop fumes won’t kill them. I keep an empty paper towel or toilet paper roll in the bin…is easy to grab and shake into a tall deli cup for feeders.
Roach colony of adults kept in a large bin (bioactive), also with good ventilation. Food put on 1/2 a paper plate and given daily also. Monthly I go thru and remove the babies/nymphs and put them in a separate little bin.
Roach nymphs kept in clean shoebox sized bin, ventilation to lid only. Piece of egg flat for them to hide in. Paper towel substrate. Food put on piece of paper plate and given daily. Bin cleaned every week or so. Remove needed feeders with tongs.
Bsfl are kept in med/lg sized food container with ventilated lid. Organic soil/coco coir mix substrate & kept partly damp. Food placed on substrate every few days.
I use deli cups. Sprinkle a bit of supplement in the cup and using tongs, put in my desired feeders. They dust themselves as they move around. Using tongs, put the feeders into the shooting galleries for chameleons. I hand/tong feed 2 chams and my other critters.
Crickets are terrible when it comes to escaping. Thankfully one of my cats like to hunt them down. I use diatomaceous earth as pest control in many areas, so the crickets don’t often survive long if they’ve come into contact with some.
Try using toilet paper tubes in your cricket bin and shake it out over the bin into whatever container you are using to dust them. You could even lightly pinch closed one end of the tube.
Hope this helps.

 

[BigSkyCham]

I will try using some D. Earth. That’s a great solution for the wandering bugs. They don’t bother me so much however my son and wife definitely will not be okay with escaping dubias. I know that day is coming.

I will start collecting paper towel tubes.

I need to figure out how to separate bugs from frass at clean out day. My dubia bin is getting deep with frass and bug parts. I have Buffalo and Dermestids in there along with their meal worm/larvae stage. Sounds like I need to clean out the cricket bin sooner than later.

I’ve been looking at a sieve set for 5gallon buckets to classify my dubias.

 

[MissSkittles]

I had tried keeping my roaches in a clean bin and all of the frass was as disgusting as crickets. That’s why I keep them bioactively now. Sifting thru monthly for the nymphs is time consuming but I have the time. If I were you, I would try getting a second roach bin and instead of cleaning around the roaches, just move all of the adults to a clean bin. Then you have easy access to all of the nymphs and can clean the bin and get it ready for the next cleaning move.
Along with diatomaceous earth, I have roach baits everywhere. I do live in Florida though, where the state animal should be a palmetto bug (aka big flying roach).

 

[nightanole]

Dubia only. I have about 3 different cleaner crews ive collected over the years. I just treat the bin as a compost heap. Old/left over people veggies get put in, and two days later are pulled out.

Once a year i remove about 2/3 of the frass and filter it so its fine. vertical egg crats are cycled out as needed.

As far as sorting. I just grab a egg crat and bash it in a bucket a few times and see what i get. I dont need dozens of victims.