House Centipede Feeding

[Philly]

I want to catch a house centipede to keep as a pet, I have a place for one and everything. The only problem is that they seem to only eat one cricket (or whatever) a week and my local petstore only sells cricrickets in dozens, and the crickets that I feed my tarantula and frogs would be too big I think. Would a house centipede accept cut up freeze dryed crickets, or could it take down a cricket as big as it? As for other feeder animals they sell at my local petstore they don't have roaches, but they do have butter worms they'll sell individually. Would a house centipede eat that?

 

[Louise E. Rothstein]

Dear Philly,

If you BREED big crickets you get much smaller sizes.
However,the hatchlings are SO small that only superfine mesh will let air in without letting them out.

You might prefer to try your centipede with a freshly frozen and thawed cricket.

And with a small butter worm-if it likes them you might consider learning to breed them.
Your other animals might like them too.

 

[edgeofthefreak]

...and with a small butter worm-if it likes them you might consider learning to breed them.
Your other animals might like them too.

I was under the impression that butter worms are irradiated before export, to purge parasites and breeding abilities. If you get a batch that didn't take to the irradiation process, you'd have to find their food source, a tree from South Africa.

Shame too, they smell like oranges and can be kept in the fridge on chicken mash.

Go for meal worms, Tenebrio molitor, since they breed regularly at room temperature, breed faster with added heat, bite much less than crickets can, and start off very small. Plus, they'll eat dead crickets and other expired feeders.


Also, good on you for wanting a House Centipede. My office is full of both those, and people who hate them. I've only heard awesome things about their care.

 

[Tongue Flicker]

Centipedes eat dead crickets if you drop them high enough in front of them. The vibrations from the impact is enough to attract their attention and eat

 

[Philly]

Thank you for the advice, I'll try all of these things (except maybe cricket breeding because I don't have the time to do that) and see what works best for me once I get the centipede.