Reptile & Amphibian Forums

what does gutloading ur crickets mean? how neccessary is it and how big a difference is it? plz reply.. i want whats best for my beardie

Gut loading as far as i know is when you feed you crickets with veg or special cricket gut loading pellets so that when you give them to your beardie they are more nutritious. As long as you use calcium or vitamin powder i don't think it is entirely necessary but i think it is best because i find the calcium dust tends to rub off before my beardie eats them. feeding the crickets is geed anyway because of course they live longer and you can buy in bulk and keep them alive long.
hope this helped a bit.
Kayleigh

I would say gutloading is a lot more important than some people think. Although it definately helps to dust the crix with calicum, if your crickets aren't gutloaded then your beardie is basically getting an empty meal with some calcium. As they say, you are what you eat.

Some stores do gutload their crickets, Petco for example feeds Flukers to all their crickets, but most of them probably dont, and even if they do it might still be worth your while to do it at home.

Gutloading is pretty easy, basically just make sure the crickets are full of good healthy veggies like you would feed your beardie. At my house i set up a 15gallon aquarium with a lid, i put some egg crates and toliet paper rolls for the crickets to climb on (it stops them from eating each other.) I have a small dish of Flukers Cricket feed (or you can just use plain oatmeal) and a small dish with a damp sponge in it for water. I also toss in a variety of different veggies, usually whatever i am feeding my dragon.

There are many different ways you can gutload your crix but that way works best for me. Gutloading is important and setting up a tank for crix is easy. Another benefit to having a cricket tank is you can toss in only as many crix as your beardie can eat at once, because remember, if you leave crix in your beardies tank, after 24 hours they lose all nutrtional value they had before.

Good luck!
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