3 Tips for Healthy Feeders

As we all know the healthier your live food is the better it will be for your pet reptiles and amphibians, but if you’re wondering how to look after your live food, we have a few tips to ensure your pet’s nutrition. Whether you’ re feeding crickets, locust or mealworms you’ll want them to last the longest they possibly can and contribute as much to your pet’s diet as possible. In this blog we’ll discuss the three most important factors to keeping your live food, well, alive – a healthy diet, hydration and living space.

3 Ways to Keep Live Food Healthy

Keeping feeder invertebrates in top condition is essential for your pet’s wellbeing because what your insects eat becomes the vitamins, calcium, and protein your reptile receives. Aim for a balanced diet using fresh veg plus a quality supplement powder, and remember many feeders (from mealworms to roaches) prefer to feed at night. Provide hydration so they can drink, and add egg cartons or cardboard tubes to increase surface area and reduce trampling. Healthy feeders generally live longer and gut-load better, improving nutrition for most reptiles and amphibians before feeding.

1. Healthy Diet

Diet is one of the most important factors in keeping and preparing live food. Essentially all of the good nutrition and supplements you feed your live food will naturally pass to your pet reptile or amphibian. A good organic diet will include salad leaves, soft fruits and vegetables (e.g. tomato and pepper). These can be dusted with supplements in small amounts allowing the live food to provide both minerals and nutrition to your pets diet. There are also complete powdered diets like ‘bug grub‘ which include all of the necessary components plus vitamins and calcium. As long as food is readily available 24 hours a day your live food will not starve and should thrive, grow and perhaps even breed.

2. Hydration

The main cause of death with live food is dehydration. Most reputable vendors will package their live food with a basic food-based substrate but there is no easy way to provide hydration in the packaging. When at home the cheapest and most available option would be to fill a bottle cap with some water and put that in packaging to act as a small water bowl. You may find that depending on the size of your live food some may drown in the makeshift water bowl so take the sizing into consideration. However, all in all, you will have improved your live food’s longevity by around a week. There are various gel based alternatives on the market which offer hydration without the chance of drowning but they require a small dish which isn’t really an option in such cramped conditions.

3. Living Space

Once your set up with a source of hydration and you have your basic food substrate the next highest cause of death will be trampling and bullying. If not given enough space crickets and locusts tend to trap each and trample each other or simply attack and eat each other. To avoid this, the best option is a larger flat plastic container like a faunarium or cricket keeper. These larger enclosures tend to provide more space and better ventilation for your live food and provided all other conditions are met (diet and hydration), it should prevent your live food from accidentally trampling each other. Most live foods will not need specialist heating and as long as your storage space stays between the extremes (3-20C) your live food should not perish.

Wrapping Up

In a larger enclosure you have the option to implement different sources of hydration and food. Rather than using a bottle cap full of water you could use a small dish with bug gel which eliminates the risk of drowning. You also have the space to implement a dish of ‘gut loading’ foodstuffs increasing the nutritional and mineral value of your live food and ensuring your pet is getting the most nutritionally complete live food possible. By ensuring you are excelling in the three criteria you can expect your live food to live far longer. You will also be providing your pet with a healthier diet ensuring they are getting all the nutrition they require to thrive in captivity.

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