Hi Susan, It appears you are rationalizing for your own benefit. Susan, we all do that. But as a cricket breeder, if you do not feed them for a few days and keep them warm, they die. If you keep them cool, 60F to 70F, then they can go weeks even a month, without food, with no ill effects.

The point I am making has slipped by you. If you think the crickets need food, then feed them. Why is feeding them before you offer them to reptiles called gut loading. You know, when I type that, I have the strongest feeling to laugh. Its simply feeding the crickets. And the crickets should be fed food that supports them. Calling it gut loading is the silly part.

In my opinion, its a commerial term, not a husbandry term.

I will ask this question, not that I know the answer. If you gut load immediately before feeding the cricket off. Then that material will not have been digested and absorbed into the crickets body and is actually undigested matter. So why not just feed that stuff to the monitor?????? Why the middleman? Cheers

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