Feeding my T's Breakfast Cereal

[Never_2_Old]

I have tried several different high quality cricket chows as well as fruit vegetables, gel and bottled water to eliminate die off of store bought crix.

As a last resort I tried a Raisin, Date, Pecan, Whole Grain Wheat and Rolled Oat cereal. I place the cereal on one side of a critter keeper and cover it with a few pieces of cardboard egg crate.

No water dish. I mist the far side of the critter keeper every second or third day.

Not only do the crickets last for a few weeks but they don't stink . Can anyone explain why this set-up works so well for me?

 

[Scott C.]

......Can anyone explain why this set-up works so well for me?

Don't know...... Maybe because your filling the cricks with preservatives.....

 

[Mina]

How good is your ventilation? That can make a difference too. Just keeping them clean makes a big difference in the smell.

 

[Never_2_Old]

Don't know...... Maybe because your filling the cricks with preservatives.....

Only BHT Scott. But you never know!

 

[Never_2_Old]

How good is your ventilation? That can make a difference too. Just keeping them clean makes a big difference in the smell.

I didn't change anything else but the food. The crickets have the same ventilation as my Tarantulas and they have been very healthy. Maybe it is the BHT.

 

[bushbuster]

I use "Gut Load" cricket feed, vent and Lettuce change every few days, no stink here, crickets live on and on...

 

[scottyk]

Crickets are field insects, and eat grasses and grains as part of thier natural diet. I feed mine many different foods in rotation, one being moistened Grape Nuts Trail Mix Crunch. I also get improved survival with whole grain cereals.

In the summer, I collect fresh field grass for my crix, and also give them wheat grass that I grow for myself year round. I have found that they will completely ignore "any" other food if wheat grass is available. They tear it up like crazy


I'd say keep it up. The improved lifespan of your crix most likely means you're doing something right, and my results are similar as well...

 

[funnylori]

I know of a grad student at OSU who had good luck feeding his meal worms Total cereal. It does have 100% of your daily vitamins and minerals... How that helps a tarantula I am not sure, but I guess it is worth a shot.

My crickets stink. A lot. And it is because I keep about 250 of them locked up in a storage tote with little ventilation. I open it for a while once or twice a week so I can clean it out, but I have an allergy to cricket and grasshopper frass that I developed working in a lab taking care of their huge grasshopper colony. I ended up having to wear a crazy respirator mask thingy like painters wear when ever I went into the hopper room. My small crickets are kept in an open topped 5 gallon bucket and they dont smell, but I still get sneezy when I have to dig in and grab a few.

 

[fingersoup]

Crickets are field insects, and eat grasses and grains as part of thier natural diet. I feed mine many different foods in rotation, one being moistened Grape Nuts Trail Mix Crunch. I also get improved survival with whole grain cereals.

In the summer, I collect fresh field grass for my crix, and also give them wheat grass that I grow for myself year round. I have found that they will completely ignore "any" other food if wheat grass is available. They tear it up like crazy


I'd say keep it up. The improved lifespan of your crix most likely means you're doing something right, and my results are similar as well...

Try wheat grass seeds .. they will put a serious hurt on those!
You can get organic seed online from those places that sell the wheat seed for people that want to grow their own grass so they can put it in a juicer and drink it. :? I get mine from wheatgrasskits.com and the cricks love it.

 

[T-chick]

I feed gut load for crickets AND instant oatmeal, usually the apple and spice...
And I water. I have found most food cubes/water gel things just don't work and are pricey.
Mine don't smell.

 

[Python]

I have a fruit juicer and I juice carrots. It tastes horrible but I give the pulp to my crix. I keep them in a ten gallon tank with peat in it and I sowed some ryegrass seed in it. They eat the ryegrass and the carrot pulp and they do great. They also breed in there so it doesn't take too long to have plenty of crix. I try not to keep anything that can't take an adult cricket so I don't seperate the adults from the babies and it works really well. Mine don't stink either and the only time I have escapes is when the ryegrass gets too tall and they climb up it and jump out. I just "mow the lawn" with scissors when it gets too tall. It's almost no maintenance at all except for the occasional misting to keep the grass growing.

 

[WyvernsLair]

Gut load is not a food. It's a supplement that you feed to the crickets about 24-48 hours before you feed those crickets to another animal. Too much long-term calcium in a cricket's diet (such as gut-load) will kill them or badly stunt them as their exoskeletons become hard and brittle and difficult to molt off.

I find that my best options has been to use Timberline Fisheries Cricket powdered food (can get a large gallon size real cheap by ordering direct from them). Other brands such as fluker's have stuff in them that the crickets don't seem to like.. just junk filler. With the Timberline mixture it all gets eaten.. no waste. I also only use water gel crystals as the primary moisture source. A few times a week, I'll also give them chopped up carrots (the extra beta carotene is good for them and the animals you feed the crickets to). I avoid fruits and other wet food stuff as they attract fruit flies and phorid flies. I perfer to house the crickets on newspaper and try to keep the cage as dry as possible. I put the dry food and the gel and carrots each into their own shallow dish to keep the mess to a minimum. I don't use a ton of gel in the dish... just a small spoonfull that gets replaced once a day. If you leave the gel in for several days it gets covered in feces and such and that creates a bacteria breeding ground not to mention it attracts phorid flies.. before long there will be maggots all over it.