# keeping locust and cricket alive longer and more filling for your rep



## Adam Niccolls (Nov 3, 2009)

This is easy place salad and other food ( lettuce, cabbage or even crushed up dog food ) in the box or bag which have them in . i find this easyer as i own tortoises and they have lots of left overs the crickets are happy to eat :lol2: also if you want to be save money on buying cricket food i found that they even eat dandilions. i personally thought id help all you guys as my locust and crickets seemed to die after a couple of days now they last ALOT longer. also if you want to make sure the crickets dont die once inside the viv place some sort of salad or vegtable. Also this gives your lizard a more filling meal as if you dont feed your crickets they have empty stomachs and there not as much filling as feeding them would be.
Hope this helps keeps most of your crickets alive. post if you disagree but personally i find this works :no1:
JUST TRY


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## Ophexis (Feb 19, 2010)

It's called gut loading... and should be done anyway to provide a more nutritional meal!


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## Adam Niccolls (Nov 3, 2009)

Sorry couldnt remember the name


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## FeralWild (May 9, 2011)

I found a really old pet keepers handbook from the 70s called How to Keep unusual Pets. It was one of a range of how to books aimed at young children and suggests pets that would keep your mother out of your room.

Its lists the care of Locusts, crickets and other inverts as long life pets instead of feeders and has some useful info. I have kept tiny hoppers up to the stage of adult winged locusts with this book and it turns out that the simpler methods work.

For locusts and crickets, you use a pet tank or large glass aqaurium, with a fine mesh lid and keep it in a warm room such as the utitility room or beneath the boiler. Line the bottom of the tank with either a mixture of fine bran or oatmeal, and give them dead branches or sticks for perches with a piece of corkbark as a shelter for crickets.

To feed locusts use fresh picked grass and lettuce or cabbage leaves changed on a daily basis and a shallow dish with a sponge saturated in water in it. Other than changing the fresh food daily, basically leave them to it.

When I gut load my locausts and morio worms for my hamsters and gerbils, (as treats) I feed them lettuce and ryvita biscuits crumbled up into the oatmeal which you can hear them crunching on.

For my reps I feed them up on a cuttlefish bone, laid flat and slightly rubbed with a nial file and lay damp lettuce and carrot and cucumber on the cuttlefish bone. As they feed they take in the calcium from the cuttlefish bone alongside the veg.


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