Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey, what am I supposed to feed the crickets I get so that they are properly gut loaded for bearded dragons? I am using flukers something or other, but the crickets die faster than they would without putting anything at all. Also, what should I "dust" them with. And, how do you dust crickets without having them escape all over the place? If you dust them and they aren't eaten, will they still survive to use again the next day? Seems a little complicated to me.

to gut load, i use flukers its a powder like stuff but yea, and then i use the clear water cubes actually the stuff i use is from timberland, but yea, its the same kinda thing that flukers makes, and fer dusting i just put teh crickets in a plastic baggy with the dust and shake it up, then i kind of hold the extra dust back with my fingers and pouyr the crix in and usually if they are dusted they should still live till the next day, good luck
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my animals
1.0.1 leopard gecko (goliath, gebco)
0.1 hypo red bearded dragon (puff the magic dragon)
0.0.1 schnieder's skink (ghandi)
0.1 white's dumpy treefrog (un-named)
1.0 house gecko (geico)
0.0.1 red eared slider (carl)
0.0.1 fire belly toad (escaped..)
1.0 lop eared wabbit (oreo)
1.1.too many to count, brown recluse (i think)
the rest of the animals in the hizouse
1.0 westie puppy (gabriel)
1.0 plain ol' outdoor alley cat (joey)
0.1 indoor rag doll kitty (tinkerbell)
2.0 goulian finchs

When you are keeping crickets they will die faster if they are not hydrated. I use carrots to keep moisture available to them as they don't seem to dry up as fast as potatoes. I use a combination of oatmeal and powdered baby cereal to feed them. I have recently discovered that crickets will devour bearded dragon pellets. What could be better to gutload with? For dusting I use T-Rex dust. What I did was take one of those disposable plastic sandwich containers made by Glad and cut a hole in the lid. I put the T-rex dust in the container and put a funnel in the hole in the lid. I put the crickets throught he funnel into the container. Just shake it up real good and they're covered. I have a couple holes in the sides of the container that I tape up. Once they are dusted I take the tape off and set the container in the cage and just let the crickets crawl out of the holes in the side. Works like a charm. I have several containers so I can feed several dragons at the same time.

Mike
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