Cricket Food Recipes

[froggsong]

I didn't say you weren't using any protein, lol... I also didn't take the time to type out everything that a cricket should be ingesting to be a good quality feeder. Calcium is even more important, because crickets have a high phosphorus content. At least add some calcium to your gutload (if you don't have alot of calcium powder to spare, you can use powedered milk). There's lots of other vitamins and minerals that your herps need as well.

[wolfie2nd]

Got ya thanks for the info....

[froggsong]

Well, I chopped all my greens for the beardie and rats tonight, and I have all the leftovers together to prepare sometime tomorrow for the crickets. I'll try to keep track of everything I put in, an d how much so I can share with all you guys.

Also, do you guys know that crickets LOVE celery? They devour it. Think about putting some in for your crickets. It's cheap and easy to prepare.

[kyryah]

I feed my crickets pretty much the same veggies and fruits that I feed my herbivorous herps and my mice and rats. Everything is low in oxalic acid content, has a 2:1 or better Ca: P ratio and is low fat. I supplement calcium and vitamin A, and use the supplement that I make myself (one of these days I will post the recipe and breakdown of that.)

Kristina

[paulypaul]

Ive done a dried parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary, milk powder and cereal oats mix. They seem to like that.
Ill definately try the celery

[froggsong]

Originally Posted by paulypaul

Ive done a dried parsley, basil, thyme, rosemary, milk powder and cereal oats mix. They seem to like that.
Ill definately try the celery

Make sure you add in a protein source as well, crickets are basically an empty shell. Some high quality dog food, or perhaps some soy beans (or meal) or some ground (or whole) peanuts. I wasn't aware that peanuts had good protein until I looked it up the other day.

[kyryah]

I prefer low fat canned cat food to dog food, dry dog food contains a LOT of carbs

I usually get the Science Diet Weight Management Formula.

Kristina

[beckdg]

this is a great discussion guys... this is like the common sense breakdown that would be easy to understand and remember... with a lot of good info... much better than looking up a couple of recipes.

[paulypaul]

I forgot to say, the milk powder was baby milk formula powder. I dont think they like it as they barely touched my mix. All the fish food went as did the parsley and basil. They seem to have had a bit of the cereal oats but not much.

[froggsong]

Try mixing it all together, paul. It seems to work better that way in my experience.

The dog food I use is a no grain dog food, it doesn't have as many carbs as others. I refuse to stuff my dog full of things she can't digest, like corn. So, I guess what I mean by "high quality dog food" is a high protein, no (or at least very low) grain food. The protein should come from meat, and there shouldn't be by-products in it. Foods of these types generally are available in a very small sample bag, which is the perfect amount to mix into the cricket food. Generally, the companies making these foods will also offer a cat food that is comparable and available in the little bags. The dog food I use has only 3% more carbs than the cat food of the same brand (sorry, it doesn't give me a measurement, just a percentage). There is only 1% more fat in the dog food.

As for the science diet... (please don't take offense, kyryah) If it's JUST for the crickets, that's one thing, but I hope you aren't feeding that crap to your cats... (although it isn't great for the crickets either) Here's the ingredient list on it:

Brewers Rice, Chicken By-Product Meal, Corn Gluten Meal, Powdered Cellulose, Ground Whole Grain Corn, Chicken Liver Flavor, Animal Fat (preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid), Soybean Mill Run, Calcium Sulfate, Choline Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Iodized Salt, vitamins (L-Ascorbyl-2-Polyphosphate (source of vitamin C), Vitamin E Supplement, Niacin, Thiamine Mononitrate, Vitamin A Supplement, Calcium Pantothenate, Riboflavin, Biotin, Vitamin B12 Supplement, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Folic Acid, Vitamin D3 Supplement), Taurine, Vitamin E Supplement, minerals (Ferrous Sulfate, Zinc Oxide, Copper Sulfate, Manganous Oxide, Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite), L-Carnitine, preserved with Mixed Tocopherols and Citric Acid, Beta-Carotene, Rosemary Extract

The main ingredients are rice; chicken necks, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines; corn; and cellulose (which they don't say the source of, I can only hope they aren't using wood pulp, but it wouldn't surprise me from these guys... cellulose is indigestible and is there for "roughage", but in the first five ingredients? That's alot of roughage...).

EDIT: I miss the "soybean mill run" before, which they are throwing in there to look like they are using soy as a protien source:

SOYBEAN MILL RUN

Soybean mill run is composed of soybean hulls and such bean meats that adhere to the hulls which results from normal milling operations in the production of dehulled soybean meal. (AAFCO, 2003) This is considered a cheap, poor quality, by-product filler. Soy is highly allergenic, causing problems for many animals and contains some enzyme inhibitors which impedes protein digestion. Most soy is also genetically modified, which makes its long term effects impossible to predict.

Even meow mix, though it has more corn, has better protein sources than only corn and by-products.

Ground Yellow Corn, Corn Gluten Meal, Chicken By-Product Meal, Soybean Meal, Beef Tallow Preserved with Mixed-Tocopherols (Source of Vitamin E), Turkey By-Product Meal, Salmon Meal, Oceanfish Meal, Brewers Dried Yeast, Phosphoric Acid, Animal Digest, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Tetra Sodium Pyrophosphate, Calcium Chloride, Choline Chloride, Added Color (Red 40, Yellow 5, Blue 2 and other Color), Salt, Taurine, Zinc Sulfate, Ferrous Sulfate, L-alanine, Niacin, Vitamin Supplements (E, A, B-12, D-3), Calcium Pantothenate, Manganese Sulfate, Riboflavin Supplement, Biotin, Folic Acid, Copper Sulfate, Pyridoxine Hydrochloride, Thiamine Mononitrate, Citric Acid, Menadione Sodium Bisulfite Complex (Source of Vitamin K Activity), Calcium Iodate, Sodium Selenite. E-4541

I'm not saying that meow mix is better, it certainly has some things that are highly undesirable, like the animal digest, but I got tired of looking for the ingredients on a "cheap" cat food. IAMs, Hills, Eukanuba (did I spell that right?), Royal Canin, they are all CHEAP CRAP in an expensive bag. My dog was on a prescription diet from royal canin for bladder stones (often caused by too much indigestible crap in their food, such as corn) that had ONLY corn for a protein source! Skip the big name "premium" foods and spend about the same amount on something from a smaller company that actually uses healthful ingredients... Ok, rant ended...

So, anyway, the quality of the protein source is what is important. Make sure anything you are using in your cricket feed is from a high quality source, not just corn.