Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is the best cricket, mealworm, and superworm gutload to use? I'm tired of petstore brands.
I found these two...
http://www.cricketfood.com/order.htm
(you can click on info for the spill)
www.herpnutrition.com (invertebrates)
Can someone help me out?
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~~Tania~~
(and Jake, Peter, and Mary) the lizard family.

For Crix I take baby cereal, dry milk and a touch of CaVitamin dust. I honestly don't even measure but I know there is a recipe out there.

For Mealies I toss in any and all of my stale breakfast cereals....cheerios, kix, honey puffs....whatever. Or oatmeal or dog kibble. Layer some papertowel with them too.

For waxies I mix honey and oatmeal to a dryish glob and feed that. As soon as I started feeding that mix they started breeding well too. Layer some waxpaper and papertowel with them.

Roaches....they eat anything! Dog kibble, cereals, etc.

The roaches and crix get fresh greens every night. The worms get a light misted papertowel over them.
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Sonya

can you tell me exactly how you mix the stuff for the wax worms?
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~~Tania~~
(and Jake, Peter, and Mary) the lizard family.

>>can you tell me exactly how you mix the stuff for the wax worms?
>>-----
>>~~Tania~~
>>and Jake, Peter, and Mary) the lizard family.

I just did this today. Take as much oatmeal as you want to use....I use about three good mounded handfuls for 500 worms in a shoebox. Take the oatmeal and mix it with honey until it clumps but not so it is totally gooey and sticking to everything. Viola. It was all I did and it was like magic how quickly I started seeing wormlings in the extra box I keep the coccoons in.
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Sonya

This is a stupid question... but by oatmeal do you mean rolled oats (traditional oatmeal, 100% rolled oats is what the box says, Quaker) or something else?
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~~Tania~~
(and Jake, Peter, and Mary) the lizard family.

I'm sorry... do you only feed the moths with this?
Do the wax worms themselves need to be fed?
Or do you feed them both.
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~~Tania~~
(and Jake, Peter, and Mary) the lizard family.

>>I'm sorry... do you only feed the moths with this?
>>Do the wax worms themselves need to be fed?
>>Or do you feed them both.
>>-----
>>~~Tania~~
>>and Jake, Peter, and Mary) the lizard family.

No,I don't think the moths eat. You feed the worms this and have it in there for the breeding moths so that when the eggs hatch the wormlings have something to eat.
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Sonya

I used to use flukers cricket feed. But buying 5 lbs of it for $10 was kind of ridiculous. Same price as oatmeal which I have tried before. My current bedding/cricket food of choice is chicken food. I buy the egg layer mash (non medicated) in 50 lb bags for $8.00 ($0.16/lb). I get it from agway, other feed stores sell it as well, some stores sell it loose so you don't have to buy 50 lbs. It has a pretty similar make up as the flukers cricket food. A little less protien, fat, and calcium. But it works very well. It actually smells less than the flukers food also, probably due to less meat content. I am very happy with it and it is so cheap I use it for superworm bedding.
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Derek Affonce
DeKeAff Exotics
dekeaffexotics.com

Works great and is reasonably priced. It has loads more nutrition than OATMEAL! Oatmeal as a bedding is ok but for me is a pain to work with and it isn't a good gut load. It lacks most of the nutrients the reptiles need.

Just my 2c worth.
Marcia