Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do you make your own cricket gutload food? What do you add if you do?
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- Juli
Polliwog Design - Under construction.

For the best ever cricket/mealworm gutload go to www.gexfiles.com click on "gecko care" and then select For the recipe of the Dry Cricket Diet and Nutrient Source info, click here.

The basic recipe is:

NUTRIONALLY COMPLETE DRY CRICKET DIET

1 bag: Dry milk (D, calcium, iron)
1 cup: Sunflower seeds (E)
1 box: Rice baby cereal (iron, calcium, phosphorus, B1, B2, niacin)
1/3 cup: Spirulina (B1, B5, B6, B12, E, beta-carotene, iron, chlorophyll, amino acids)
3/4cup: Raw bee pollen (B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, folic acid, C, D, E, K, minerals)
1 cup: Wheat germ (E)
1 cup: Alfalfa leaf tablets (A, B6, E, K, enzymes)
1/2 cup: Dried sea kelp (iodine)
1 Dried egg yolk
1/2 cup: Dried high protein kitty chow or monkey chow

Entire mixture should be ground up to a powder in a food processor, individually and remixed or all together at the same time.

Do check out the entire page though as there are suggested ingredient substitutions, storage instructions, and a really good list of fruits & veggies that will complete the gut-load giving your reptiles the very best mix of vits & mins.

In my opinion it is really important to give your reptiles the best as they are only as good as what they eat. If you toss in a few cheerios, bran, rice, etc you may be giving what you think is a good mix but you don't have anything to compare it to and you don't have a complete analysis of what you are really feeding. This recipe has been carefully worked out to make sure that it is complete and balanced to meet your reptiles needs, not that of your children or non-reptilian pets. IMHO

Marcia