Reptile & Amphibian Forums

During the warm season I keep crickets as a staple food, then also get some meal worms about twice a month, and also feed them a few things from outside here and there.

During the winter however, nothing is available from outside and being a very cold location, I need to have live bugs shipped here with heat-packs (1000 crickets).

So it's hard to make variation in their diet over the winter.

Aside from calcium powder, are there any other supplements available to better their nutrition? Any other good things I can dust crickets with for them?

How about nightcrawlers, redworms, or earthworms chopped up or whole depending on what kind of toads that you have for a food variety? As long as it moves, it's usually accepted. Most bait shops carry these. Also dust the crickets with a vitamin/mineral suppliment if possible about every other week. You can also offer bee moths every now and then; bait shops have these also from time to time. Variety is best, plus it gets them to NOT get too picky. Just tossing around a few ideas for you.

All you need to do is feed the crickets gut-loading formula available at pet stores for at least 24 hours before feeding and dust them with vitamin and mineral powder once or twice a week right before feeding.

but that's why I am asking, pet stores around here have nothing but calcium dusting powder, no gut-loading formulas.

So what are the gutloading products you speak of and can you show me an example of something like that for sale on the internet?

Well in my opinion the specialty pet store products are the best, but there are common household foods that you can use to gut load as well.

You can use ground corn flakes, chicken mash (chicken food), wheat germ, or any combination to gut-load the crickets.
Provide slices of apples, potatoes, and carrots for moisture and extra nutrition.

I use the High Calcium Cricket Diet and some times the Cricket Quencher (with and with out calcium). There are other brands that are for gut loading. You can order online from the link below or any national chain store as well.

http://www.flukerfarms.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=22