Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this topic sounds really dumb but the cost of crickets at pet stores is crazy and I cant breed them, it takes too long and too much room.I was thinking of getting crickets offline but they sell them in bulk and most of the crickets I get will probably die.Is it possible, like mice, to freeze them(normal fridge freezing) and then thaw them out later to feed to your leopard gecko.I know my leopard geckos eat almost anything moving so I don't doubt they would eat the dead crickets.I usually just put it near their mouth and they eat it.The Can 'O Crickets are just as expensive and I don't like the Freeze Dried..they look too dry.So is it possible to keep the juices and nutrients so I can feed my leos frozed/thawed crickets.I was thinking that if it worked...mostly I could feed them the thawed out crickets and live crickets and meal worms every now and then.Ant Ideas?Please Help.Thanks

Marnique

I dont know about the crickets. In my opinion i think they would die but i dont know. Anyways it kinda sounded like you feed the dead crickets to your leo? do you really? If you do DONT because of the bacteria growing on their rotting bodies.

Back to the freezing i probably wouldnt becasue you have to keep feeding them their gutload and stuff to get the nutrious. Also how much does your crickets cost? i dont think crickets would cost alot. At my petstore they are $1.00 a dozen, $3.50 for 50 crickets, and i think $7.00 for 100.
-----
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-------------------------------~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!
Leopard Geckos ROCK!!!

You certainly can freeze crickets and feed later. It's pretty easy, you only need to gutload feed them once, give some nutritous fruits and vegetables for water sources and after 24 hours just pop them all in the freezer. You most likely will have to jiggle them in front of your leopards the first few times but once they get used to the idea they're rearing to go every time. You've got to thaw them to room temperature all the way through or else your leo can get seriously hurt by frozen insides.

I hand feed all of my geckos live lobster roaches once or twice a week and when the colony is low, they attack those can of crickets just as greedily. I do have one female that only eats mealworms and one male that refuses the canned--but that's only 2 out of 26 I have right now. But with hand feeding you know who eats when and how much during breeding seasons and it's real easy to supplement different things as needed to each gecko.

As for the freeze dried, your gecko will just grab onto them and they litterally explode into a cloud of dust. I powder them and add them to veggies for my finicky turtle, but once, when in a jam I just soaked them in a cup of water for 15 minutes and my leos ate them just as easily as canned, live or frozen.

I'd experiment with a few first before you get a thousand and find out that your gecko isn't into TV dinners.

Randy
DeadFish Herpetological

What "can" crickets do you use?
how many ounces is the "can"?
how many crickets are in the "can"?
could you give more detailed info about how to feed your geckos prekilled prey?
do they eat more or less of the prekilled than they do live?
-----
0.1 Albino Leopard gecko (Lex)
0.0.1 ball python (felix)
1.1 feral cats (Fuzzy, and Bear; it used to be fuzzy, wuzzy, bear)

Thank you so much for your response.Considering my leos...they will probably take the crickets hand fed considering they eat anything.I will try a few frozen then thawed crickets and see if they work.If it works on all my leos then I will try the 1000.I spend about 7 bucks a week or more for my leos and its getting too expensive.Now that I have this idea I think things will be alot cheaper.Once again thanks