Cricket Food Recipes

[WarrenPaul]

I've been using cat food (holistic, or all meat protein), powdered calcium, some tropical fish food, and what remained of my flukers cricket powder. I like to cut up some potatoes and throw them in there every so often they seem to enjoy potatoes the best. They def. prefer the fish food though, that always gets ate first.
I'm excited to use some leftover GNC multivitamins, I am certainly not using them, may as well put them to use.
Grinding up the cat food has been a real pain and I'm nervous about grinding up multivitamins too... time to invest in a mortar/pestle?
Has anyone used a mortar/pestle? Know where you can get them on the cheap? Or even has a home-grown solution that's equally useful?

[HewesHort]

i use an old blender to grind everything. a mortar and pestle would work but that seems tedious.

[WarrenPaul]

Yea I figured a blender would be the way to go. Not really intent on buying one that i'd dedicate to grinding up cricket food and don't already have one to use. Figured a mortar-pestle, while a bit tedious, would be cheaper and i'm not really worried about the time it takes- only need to do it once in a long while. But I cannot seem to find them for sale at any major store. Don't rightly know where to begin looking- online is an option but I hate buying things I cannot see and touch...

[froggsong]

Sometimes you can find a mortar and pestle at the dollar store. I bought mine form a flea market. I use it to further grind herbs and sometimes to powder pills and whatnot (like the chunks in the multivitamin left over from the magic bullet). Mine is made of wood, so I don't have to worry about it scratching. You might be able to find one at Macy's (seems like we had one at one time if we don't still have one, but that wasn't my regular area to work in). Stores that sell loose teas or holistic stuff might carry them.
For a homemade option, you could use a bowl (wooden if you have one so it is less likely to scratch or make an awful noise, a gourd bowl would also be perfect) and anything that you can press with to grind stuff up, even a spoon will work in a pinch (though it is likely to bend). You could make a pestle out of a dowel.

I use the magic bullet for most things that I blend or powder, but the mortar and pestle is invaluable when you need it. I'm really glad I bought mine. I even keep it out on the counter.

[paulypaul]

I was interested to see that you added dried basil and corriander. I have plenty of that in my store cupboard. How about dried mint, parsley, sage and the like? Also, how do you go about dehydrating foods? Wouldnt it be just as good if I used a different bowl for wettish foods like cucumber, apple and orange? Wouldnt they get the hydration they need from them food? I was planning on having 3 bowls in my cricket enclosure; one for wet foods, one for dry and one for a sponge.
Now I know I can use dog foods, ill look at those too. The only problem is that all the foods youve mentioned arent for sale in the UK.

[froggsong]

The problem with fresh vegetables is spoilage. If you have that stuff around, go ahead and give it to them, by all means, but drying it allows you to still provide them with those nutrients without any of it spoiling.

I wouldn't feed them any herbs that are spicy. I'm not sure that coriander would be appropriate, but you could try some separate and see if they eat it and if it has any adverse effects.

With fresh herbs and dark greens (lettuce has almost no nutrients and can be used for water purposes, but would just be a filler otherwise), you CAN just dry them naturally, but I'm going to use my food dehydrator.

If you DO use a dish for fresh veggies and whatnot, I wouldn't use a bowl, I would use something VERY shallow and only lay down a small layer. Slice any veggies like carrots and potatoes fairly thinly (carrots are really good to give them, and great for coloration of your herps) so that they are more likely to dry than mold. You don't want crickets getting underneath the food either.

[HewesHort]

Another way to dry things quickly is to place them on a cookie sheet, and put them in the oven at 170F. leave the oven door open by an inch or two and check the material every couple minuets. when the material is starting to dry, but not yet crispy, remove it from the oven. set the cookie sheet on the stove, buy the time the cookie sheet cools the material should be dry. if not put back in the oven for a few minuets. depending on the size of the material this process should only take about 10 minuets

[wolfie2nd]

Well here's one of the recipes that I use. I grind up 2 tsp of grits 1 tsp of honey maple and brown sugar oatmeat then crush up 2 or three peanuts... Works out pretty good..

Oh yeah my local petshop had these small beatles called weevile bugs. They are cultured in blackeye peas. They lay their eggs on the beans larva eat the beans as do the adults so they have got to be high in protine... My AGTF and my RETF love em also one of my Reed frogs tear em up also

[froggsong]

I don't think I'd want to risk letting weevils loose in my house...

wolfie, that recipe is probably feeding the crickets ok, but you should be using a higher quality gut load. Without a good protien source being fed to your crickets, they aren't giving your herps what they need. Think of crickets as an empty shell, they are what they eat, which means that if they're not eating healthy stuff, your herps aren't getting good nutrients.

[wolfie2nd]

Well and as far as protein went that was the peanuts