Freezing crickets

H

heather

Guest
Hello, I have a silly question but I was wondering if I could freeze crickets prior to feeding them to my newts? I figured I could gut load the crix for a day or so and put them in the freezer overnight to kill them. I am asking because crix kind of give me the creeps when they are alive and jumping - one of the reasons I like newts so much is because I dont mind worms! But I would like to add variety to my little pets diet and figured if this would work...
Any suggestions or comments would be great, thanks
 
If you are going to gut load the crickets then you need to feed them for at least 48 and preferably 72 hours before freezing them but yes you can freeze then but this means you will have to hand feed the newts.

Ed
 
Thanks for the feedback. I didnt know I needed to gut load for so long, but I dont mind hand feeding at all - I already mostly hand feed my tiger sal because she is so bad at finding food on her own. Thanks again Ed,
Heather
 
The length of time is because the crickets have lost a lot of fat, and protiens during shipping and need time to replenish thier reserves.

Ed
 
Heather, is that a C. pyrrhogaster in your photo? Did you acquire an adult, or did one of my babies pull through?
 
I believe (s)he is a C. pyrrhogaster - she(?) is the one I got in a pet shop about 14 years ago. Sadly, none of the babies pulled through. I sure wish I knew what I had done wrong, it has thrown me off the whole raising young newts idea. Perhaps if I get brave I will try it again some day, but ...we'll see. And Ed, it makes sense what you write about replenishing reserves. I love this forum - my questions always get answered!
Heather
 
what is gut load?? Is that silly>?
 
In the strictest sense, gutloading means feeding crickets an ultra-high-calcium feed prior to using them. Ultra-high calcium cricket food may cause the crickets to die sooner, but is one way to improve their calcium:phosphorus ratio, at least to some extent. (The other way being dusting.)

Sometimes people use the word gutload to mean feeding the crickets healthy veggies (greens, carrots, etc) prior to use. This is a good thing to do, but will not do much to correct the poor calcium problem.

You can use google to find loads of info (and products) for this.
 
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