# baby cricket food?



## syble (Mar 20, 2007)

I know alot of people are fond of feeding potatoes to crickets until they gut load, but what other options? Like what about carrots or sweet potatoes... I'm looking for natural ways to add more beta carotine to my darts diet aswell as some diversity in their food. Also is there any nutritional value difference that is kept from eating carrots or the like if i gut load them before feeding them or is it just a matter of stomach contents when eaten?
Thanks
Sib :wink:


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## gary1218 (Dec 31, 2005)

There's been a few good posts on crickets here recently that included information on feeding. If you do a search on "pinhead crickets" you should find them.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

If you want to increase thier beta carotene content you can always try spirulina. 

Ed


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

First... what is your goal by adding more beta carotene to the diet of the frogs?

I use sweet potatoes as one of my staples... adds lots of beta carotene and turns the pinheads' guts orange  Feed the pinheads pretty much a variety of veggies (some fruits may have too much water content and thus the pinheads would stick to them and die, wait until they are a week or so old) and keep them fresh. They can't chew the hard foods at that age.

As for nutritional difference... only in that you've got a healthy cricket. Gut loading can change the nutritional values of the bug ingested by the predator as a whole, but doesn't really change the nutritional value of the actual feeder bug. It's just using the digestive system of the feeder to sneak in some extra goodies. Sweet potato just before they are fed turns their guts orange and has colored up some pumilio to a limited extent... but to get full coloration a supplement like naturose is still needed.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

I am at a loss why sweet potatos are being used to add more beta carotene given that this is the major form of vitamin A supplementation in most supplements. If you are dusting then you are in all probability supplying beta carotene in excess (and this is even before we get to the levels of beta carotene in the green veggies...). 

Ed


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## syble (Mar 20, 2007)

I remember chatting with people in the past and them talking about the benifits of crikets and how you cen get more nutrition with them. Beta carotine was the main thing they had talked about. Personally I just want to get a good range of nutrition and offer the frogs something different to eat. I'm very new to the concept of raising crickets for dart food.
Sib


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## KeroKero (Jun 13, 2004)

IMO - it's more important to have a healthy feeder than trying to make the feeder have certain nutrition it doesn't come by normally. Ideally the various dusts would make up the difference.


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

syble said:


> I remember chatting with people in the past and them talking about the benifits of crikets and how you cen get more nutrition with them. Beta carotine was the main thing they had talked about. Personally I just want to get a good range of nutrition and offer the frogs something different to eat. I'm very new to the concept of raising crickets for dart food.
> Sib



Crickets can be gut loaded but the exact extent of the benefits of the various gut loading diets is up for some debate. The only ones that have any real analysis on the effects are the ones that have been fed a basic diet to make up lost protiens, fats and some vitamins and minerals due to shipping. This takes about 48 hours or the ones that were made to adjust the calcium/phosphorus ratios. There was one paper on adjusting the retinol levels of the feeder insects and much like the calcium/phosphorus ratios this was possible (but there were some wildly varing results) when done under well controlled conditions. This is a little different than what is typically done in the hobbyists collection. 

A lot of people toss beta carotene around but most don't realize how prevalent it is in the diet offered to the frogs if there is a proper supplementation regimen going on especially if they are already offering things like greens to the crickets. 

Ed


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