Cricket Food Recipes

[HewesHort]

There are many recipes out there, but they all seem to contain some basic ingredients. I thought i might be helpful to have this in our new feeder section.

Basic Ingredients:

- High protein dog food, meat must be the primary ingredient

- Powdered milk

- Fish food, without ethoxyquin

- Vitamin supplements, dusting powders work well, as do human multivitamins


Other Ingredients:

- Italian seasoning

- Parsley, dried

- Basil, dried

- Vegetable noodles

- Oatmeal

- Whole grain cereals

- Dried seaweed

- Peanuts

- Grits
Amounts used vary, but definitely use dog food as the main ingredient. if any one wants to post their recipe, please do. I will add any new ingredients as they are posted.

[FroggieLove]

I use the cricket feed found at pet stores, and fish flakes as their main source of food. (this can be expensive but I work at a pet store and get a good discount.) I've crumbled up dog food and put it in with them before and they didn't want to eat it. Maybe I should try a different dog food. I also give them bits of fresh veggies and potatoes as well.

[froggsong]

I had bad results with the Flukers cricket food from the pet store. Lots of deaths. I'll be mixing up some new gutload powder in the next few days, I'll post whatever I come up with. I'll try to take exact measurements or at least ratios. We have a food dehydrator now, so I may dehydrate some greens and whatnot and then powder it and add it in.

Fish food is definitely good to feed them, and they LOVE it. If you can, try to find one without ethoxyquin. It's a harmful preservative. The goldfish food that I have doesn't have it in it, but they seem to prefer the tropical fish food over the gold fish food. I keep a dish of fish food in there for my tiny baby crickets.

As for the dog food, if you buy a really high quality dog food for your cricket feed, you don't have to buy a whole bag. Most of the high quality foods come in trial sized bags for just a couple of dollars, and it will be plenty for your recipe. You should check some of the online dog food stores and the websites of the manufacturers too, as they often give away free samples, sometimes with free shipping as well. You might be able to find coupons online for free bags that size too. Sometimes it doesn't look like they are eating it at all, but they really are, they just take tiny tiny bites. They seem to like it best if it is in a shallow dish with a single layer of the dog food (if you are feeding just the dog food and not a ground up powder containing dog food).

If you can get it, some stores that sell bulk spices sell calcium powder. You can substitute the calcium powder for the powdered milk.

Dusting powders definitely work well for vitamin supplementation in the gut load, but you can also get/use people vitamins as well. Centrum is a good one. Just grind the pills into a powder, sift out any chunks, and add to the gutload. It generally comes out cheaper in the long run that way.

It should be noted as well, if using dog food for the bulk of the gutload, it is recommended to refrigerate what you aren't currently using to prolong the shelf life.

[FroggieLove]

Good info! Thanks Frogg. Never knew you could use centrum. I might just have to ground up some of the centrum chewables I dont use anymore.

Oh, and I tested another food. The freeze-dried bloodworms. They LOVED it. Now just seeing if they survive it.... they should be fine tho. (I test new foods on small samples of crickets, just in case!)

[HewesHort]

Awesome froggsong! ill add that bit about the preservative to the list. that centrum tip is great! i was also thinking of adding dehydrated greens and veggies, carrots in particular to the gut load. i might do some research and come up with a list of dog food brands and their ingredients so we can figure out whats good and whats not.

[froggsong]

IMO, the best dog food to add is Orijen. It's got a high protein content, no grains, and is made from human grade all natural meats. I use it for my dog. Another good one I use for my dog is By Nature. Blue Buffalo also makes a food that is comparable to Orijen, but it has one grain in it. I haven't used the Blue Buffalo yet, but the rep I was talking to about it was very knowledgeable and I trust his info (I also read the ingredients). The By Nature and the Blue Buffalo can be purchased at Petsmart. Orijen is a little more difficult to find.

As for dried veggies for the gutload, I almost think that with things like carrots, it would be easier to grind them up BEFORE putting them into the dehydrator. What do you think?

[MTviver]

could I use Nori? I got it for my fish, but for some reason none of them like it...

[froggsong]

Seaweed? Sure, I don't see why not.

[HewesHort]

froggsong, what if you shredded the carrots with a small cheese grater or micro plane? wouldnt some grains be beneficial? i would think that it would give the crickets a more balanced diet, and in turn our pets.

MTviver, i was told by the guy a the local farm supply that he feeds his crickets mostly on seaweed and fish food. he uses cheap dried seaweed that they use in sushi. its packed with nutrients, so it should be great.

[froggsong]

Sure, I guess it would work well that way. I just tend to make my gutload into a powder. It's just what I am used to from years of using Flukers before I got tired of paying so much for it (and suddenly needed lots more crickets). I know that most of the chunky stuff out of my last batch got passed over for the smaller grains, but most of those chunks were hard pieces of veggie noodles that didn't get ground up enough. I was actually thinking of at least shredding them with the cheese grater.

This time when I make mine, I plan to use alot of the good stuff I feed to my beardie when I can. I want to take a trip to Central Market and get all the different sorts of greens and then dehydrate alot of them and mix them into the gutload. That way I know that even if he isn't eating his salad or I haven't been able to get the things I should be putting in it, he'll still be getting the nutrients from it, without me having to worry about and greens spoiling in the cricket bin.