cricket feeder question

[brian547]

so i got this 2000 box of crickets 2 weeks ago. yesterday my leos refused to eat them, well 3 out of 5 of them. im gutloading them and giving them water crystals, etc. can they just go bad? i have a hundred or so left and i dunno if i should throw them out and start buying from local pet stores again or start trying to give them a different feeder. my trempers wont eat mealies or supers or id jsut switch back to those. i was thinking about getting duby roaches but dont wanna worry about them getting loose and speading. so can crickets actually go bad? and if i did get roaches will they reproduce enough to feed around 10 geckos daily? thanks for your help..

 

[rcobourn]

Most likely your leos are just reducing their food intake due to season stuff... mine are barely eating, and I'm in AZ... we hardly have seasons.

However, here are a few things to check out with your crickets:

1) are they getting enough moisture? you say you've got water crystals in there, but are there enough, and are they well hydrated? 2000 is a lot of crickets, they should have a pretty big (half-pint?) container of water crystals.

2) is there any mold in there? You should be able to tell by smell. I've noticed that when I battled mold in my roach colony, the leos lost interest in them.

3) You mention gutloading, but you didn't mention what you were feeding them. I've noticed some veggies make the crickets smell bad to me, and the geckos. Sticking with potatoes, carrots, and apples, along with Fluker's cricket food, has been a winning combo for me.

If none of this seems to apply, just try the cricks again after a few days, offering a different feeder in the meantime. Meanwhile, you might experiment with silk worms as a feeder if you can't feed superworms.

 

[dunderpate]

I would agree with rcobourn, mine hasnt been eating much lately either, and i live in Canada, where we do have noticible seasons. Ive had my Leo for 7 years, but i have no need for 2000 crickets. I like to change up the diet for my Leo. such as a gutloaded superworm diet, i also gut load my crickets for my Crested's and my Leo, usually cricket food all in one in gel form. also every once and a while for a treat i usually feed him a 2 or 3 day old pinky mouse, or wax worms, i stress treat because the latter is very fattening and addictive to your Leo.

 

[brian547]

thanks for the replies guys. yea, my tremper adults and juvy bb wont eat them but my sunglow and shtct juvies will eat them. ehh, i gutload with oats, carrots, potatoes, flukers orange cubes and flukers cricket quencher water gel. i was cleaning it out last night and noticed some larva...fruit flies i think. there was a lil mold and it does stink but i thought the smell was from the crickets that had died inside. i bought a couple dozen of crickets from the store and will try them instead tonight. i wanna switch to roaches but dont really know how long it would take to develop a self sustaining colony.

 

[rcobourn]

It takes about 2 to 3 months to get a self-sustaining colony, but if you start with enough roaches, you can feed out adults (especially the males) almost right away.

 

[brian547]

what amount is a decent amount to start out with? i onll have 5 leos that were on crickets/supers. i was thinking about getting 100-150 mixed to start out with..

 

[rcobourn]

Sounds about right.. I think I started with 100.