Cricket feeding experiments

[Bathory]

I decided to make this thread so I can write out all my experiments with gut loading/feeding my little cricket community. Hopefully this way maybe someone else can learn from my mistakes/success and maybe you guys have suggestions as well? Oats are pretty much my staple for them as it doesn't go bad before I replace their food, I also always offer cotton pads soaked with water for them to drink. The number one thing I've noticed is that they are thirsty bugs! Every time I replace the cotton they all rush out for a drink.

1st experiment
Got a bunch of small crickets, offered them oats and apples and they all seemed to accept it. The mantis ate the crickets and looked healthy.

2nd experiment
So I bought about 25 medium sized crickets, hoping to maybe breed them. Gave them oats and wet cotton pads for moisture. All crickets rushed to the food and water, telling me the pet store I got them from hadn't been feeding them. After one day I upgraded and gave them some apple pieces without the skin in case of pesticides and they accepted it happily.

3rd experiment
According to the internet, crickets like potatoes. So I put that statement to the test and offered some potato slices along with apples and oats. The potatoes were clearly the food of choice. Big con of potatoes though was that they would grow mold much faster than the apples.

4th experiment
Today I tried to add some crushed up dog treats along with the potatoes and oats, with high meat content and nothing that should hurt the crickets or the mantis. I'm currently watching them to see if they like it. Some of them are starting to crawl out of the egg cartons and one is sniffing the dog treat and I'm hoping to see some results!

EDIT: They LOVE the dog treat! one of them even took a big chunk and hid away in a corner to eat it in peace lol

5th experiment
I decided to get crafty and make some diy cricket chow. Ingredients were: oats, wheat, crushed soft dog treats with 95% meat content and powdered kelp. Put it all in a glass jar and gave it a good shake. Potatoes were put on the side for moisture. Thinking about adding sesame seeds and/or pumpkin seeds in next batch.
Pros of using kelp: they smell it and I don't need much, I have a whole jar of it for my dog. They wiggle their little antennae like crazy and seem to go straight for the food.
Cons of using kelp: it smells terrible, at least to me.
*ADDITION TO 5TH EXPERIMENT*
I gave them a small piece of banana and they seemed to appreciate it. The con of bananas is that they, like potatoes, go bad in pretty much one day or less. There's a dying cricket in the enclosure but it looks like it's dying from old age and not from bad food.

5.1
Modified the cricket chow slightly. I added more kelp and dog treats to the mix and removed the wheat. The apple slices they get were powdered with kelp and I added water crystals on the side since the crickets have decided that the wet cotton is a great place to lay their eggs. There's a mix of sizes in the cricket container now, ranging from small babies to adults, and I've seen no signs of cannibalism so far.

6th experiment
Got some muesli(with oats and dried fruits), shredded coconut, dog treats and kelp this time. I find that I'm adding more and more of the kelp & dog treats, because while it smells terrible the crickets seem to be eating more of it. I've completely converted to water crystals now as the females suddenly started to lay eggs in the cotton pads rather than using the soil I provided. The enclosure got a good cleaning today which is super hard to do when you have pinheads and adults in the same space. As usual, I added pieces of apple and powdered them with kelp. The most recently bought crickets all rushed to the apple and water crystals, I don't think retailers understand how thirsty these bugs are?

7th experiment (or cricket ICU)
Having a bit of a scare with dead crickets and others not looking too hot. I decided to disinfect their enclosure and put the sick looking ones into separate housings for now, and I'm not gonna use them as feeders for a week or so just to make sure more don't go bad. Food wise they are on a tweaked version of their usual diet: muesli, kelp, wheat bran, a teeny tiny bit of potato flour, peeled oats and a seed mix with chia and sesame seeds. Water crystals for moisture and organic carrots on the side, with some dog treats.

 

[Okoboji22]

This is very interesting, I wish more people on the forum would do these types of experiments wether it be with mantids or crickets. I never would have thought the crickets would like the dog treat with all the protein. Lol at the greedy cricket who took the piece to the corner :lol:

 

[Krissim Klaw]

I was about to suggest high quality dog food or the like for protein but then saw you finally offered them some. One of the big mistakes people make with crickets is not providing a protein source. It is why they will cannibalize and sometimes desperately go after the animals they are being fed to.

 

[Rick]

I was about to suggest high quality dog food or the like for protein but then saw you finally offered them some. One of the big mistakes people make with crickets is not providing a protein source. It is why they will cannibalize and sometimes desperately go after the animals they are being fed to.

I used nothing but crickets for mantis feeders for many years and can count the number of times I had issues on about two fingers. I kept mine on a substrate of plain oatmeal and fed them leafy greens, some fruit, and high quality dry dog food. 

I think the issue with crickets is the source you obtain them from, they are not be design unhealthy for mantids. 

 

[Bathory]

Update!

So Elizabeth Bathory didn't want the cricket I offered, she molted pretty recently but looked like she was starving. She did attack the cricket but threw it away after it fought back. I had to fridge it then cut it in half and give it to her with tweezers. I decided to change things up so her hunting response doesn't completely go away and I got some small mealworms for variation. They're currently living in and eating oats and potato. The crickets are still doing great but I must say I prefer apples over potatoes.

 

[Bathory]

Update: made diy cricket chow for experiment 5, added it to original post

 

[Mystymantis]

Thanks so much for posting about your experiment, it is very informative!

 

[Bathory]

Thanks so much for posting about your experiment, it is very informative!

Thank you, I wish more people would talk about what they give their mantis feeders, when looking for gutload recipes there's only posts about reptile feeders but not as many for mantids. 

 

[Bathory]

I've decided to give the same food to all my feeders (crickets, mealworms and dubias). The mealworms were super thirsty it seems.

 

[Silly~Chili]

Out of the 8 mantises I've had over the past few years, 5 of them have been fed on crickets and survived to adulthood. Really, I don't see the problem with feeding crickets to mantises as long as the crickets are well cared for.

 

[Bathory]

Updated! Crickets are currently under supervision for any diseases.

 

[hysteresis]

@Bathory

Long time ago for sure, bit this is an awesome thing. 

Thank you for doing this.