Adding crickets to the menue...need some advice though.

  • We are currently upgrading MFK. thanks! -neo
Hhhmmm that's a good idea Jay. I hear you all talking about loading them up - you suggesting with carrots or fruit of some sort? Is it possible to load crickets and mealworms on like pellets or foodsticks, then freeze them?

Dumb question, if I freeze the unopened box how do I gutload/feed them? I like the idea of freezing, as I'd prefer not to have them roaming around the house. Then again, if I drop 3-4 at a time, I don't think they'll have much a chance to get out - even with the 6" guy...
 
Your gonna have wire screens on 2 sides of the cricket box. Face one screen toward the ceiling & 1 facing the ground. Put a piece of cardboard or anything that can catch the cricket poop that will fall through the bottom screen. I use a small food processor to grind up the food in tiny bits so the crickets can grasp it through the screen. I use a mix of baby spinach, baby carrot & blueberries, but you can improvise and use whatever you want including any type of fish food too. If you choose to skip the veggies & berries and just want to use fish food, you might be able to avoid the food processor and just soak the food for a bit and just put it on the screen as is. Otherwise mince everything up in the processor with a touch of water to help with a thorough blending. Now take some of the mixture out & create a gd size mound on top of the screen facing the ceiling. The mound of food within a couple hours will completely disappear. Keep adding mounds of food on top of the screen for a full day. Then place the box in the freezer for a half hour. Open box, put them in snack size ziplock bags (about 100 or so per bag). Putting them all in one big bag usually makes the legs fall off eventually through constant handling of the same bag, so the snack bags work great to prevent this

I usually buy 4k crickets and 2k superworms at a time for my aro to save on shipping. I recommend buying at least 2k for your 6inch aro. Shipping gets better with the more you buy. Freezing mealworms and superworms didn't work that well for me, so i keep my superworms alive
 
Thanks for taking the time for the explanation Jay. I think I'll first try with a small batch of crickets from the local store and use minced up fish food to load them up. It would probably better to use veggies as you did, but I'm just trying to keep things simple for now. If I have success, then I'll go with bulk purchases. I recently tried live mealworms too (no freezing). I didn't however feed them much, since the 50 "large" ones were gone within a week (mixing with other foods too). My Lei loves that stuff.
 
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