Maintenance Diet/ Gut load Methods and Research Thread!

[Digs]

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Hello! I've decided to create a thread dedicated to the methods and research of maintenance and gut-loading diets for feeder insects.
Here's some literature that I've read:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27405009/
http://titag.org/2015/2015papers/attardcrickets.pdf

https://jeb.biologists.org/content/j...3/557.full.pdf
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ar...l.pone.0218830

These are currently the diets I maintain my feeder insects on:
Crickets: Fed tropical fish flakes, Dumor chicken Layer crumbles grounded up with cucumber and carrots.
Meal/Superworms: Dumor chicken Layer crumbles(Non- Medicated and no Diatomaceous Earth) grounded up, sweet potatoes, Apples and Carrots. Breeding beetles are supplemented with tropical fish flake to help with carb/protein ratio.
Dubia roaches: Fed a low protein diet of oatmeal and fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the uric acid levels they currently might have.

I have ordered some T-rex cricket diet for gut-load and according to some sites each feeder requires a different time window for peek nutrient levels.

I'm currently searching for some feed that contains high vitamin A and E levels.

[Elizabeth Freer]

Crickets: Fed tropical fish flakes, Dumor chicken Layer crumbles grounded up with cucumber and carrots.
Meal/Superworms: Dumor chicken Layer crumbles(Non- Medicated and no Diatomaceous Earth) grounded up, sweet potatoes, Apples and Carrots. Breeding beetles are supplemented with tropical fish flake to help with carb/protein ratio.
Dubia roaches: Fed a low protein diet of oatmeal and fresh fruits and vegetables to reduce the uric acid levels they currently might have.

How much protein do your tropical fish flakes contain? Are they Tetramin Fish Flakes?

Have you seen this link regarding the phosphorus content of oatmeal?

For link 98 click: Common Mealworm & Superworm Dry Diets & Beddings -- Use something else!

[Digs]

How much protein do your tropical fish flakes contain? Are they Tetramin Fish Flakes?

Have you seen this link regarding the phosphorus content of oatmeal?

For link 98 click: Common Mealworm & Superworm Dry Diets & Beddings -- Use something else!

Yes they're the TetraMin fishflakes. Yes I have read that link but I was thinking that perhaps if used with a high calcium formal gut-load like T- rex it would help with increasing the calcium to optimum levels. Maybe I took my hypothesis a bit too far?
I do have a grounded up 5 seed meal that I want to try for the roaches instead though.

[Elizabeth Freer]

Yes they're the TetraMin fishflakes. Yes I have read that link but I was thinking that perhaps if used with a high calcium formal gut-load like T- rex it would help with increasing the calcium to optimum levels. Maybe I took my hypothesis a bit too far?
I do have a grounded up 5 seed meal that I want to try for the roaches instead though.

When I started out with geckos in 1988, I used Tetramin Fish Flakes for the crickets for a while. At that time TetraMin Fish Flakes contained 46% protein!!!

Nutrition is a pretty complicated science.

[Digs]

When I started out with geckos in 1988, I used Tetramin Fish Flakes for the crickets for a while. At that time TetraMin Fish Flakes contained 46% protein!!!

Nutrition is a pretty complicated science.

They still do contain that much protein, that's why I dont give them to the roaches. Yes nutrition is complicated that's why I stopped trying to make my own homemade food from scratch and just leave it up to the commercial foods. I like searching for Mazuri diets since they have a full product sheet of almost all the nutrients in the food .

[Digs]

I'm considering Mazuri's Llama chews the next time I need to re-stock on maintenance food here's their nutritional chart and you'll see in the ingredient list that it contains vitamin A acetate.
https://pims.purinamills.com/Busines...7.pdf?ext=.pdf
I wonder if vitamin A and E levels begin to decrease over just 24 hours. I probably should feed this right before I put the insects on the formal gut-load if that's the case.

[Digs]

I have found a paper that might be helpful for increasing nutrients with a maintenance diet .
Method of Altering the Nutrient Composition of Feeder Insects - Mark Finke LLC

[Digs]

I'm planning on doing an experimental meal/superworm bedding consisting of Dumor's 16% poultry layer crumbles and Mazuri's timothy based guinea pig diet. I'm aiming to increase the calcium, vitamin A, vitamin E and vitamin D levels in the worms.

Here are some links to studies that I'm basing this mix off of

Method of Altering the Nutrient Composition of Feeder Insects - Mark Finke LLC

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26366856/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11428399/

Nutrient info on both foods

Mazuri Guinea Pig Diet: https://pims.purinamills.com/Busines...A.pdf?ext=.pdf

Dumor 16% Poultry Layer Crumbles: Crude Protein (min): 16.00%
Lysine (min): 0.70%
Methionine (min): 0.35%
Crude Fat (min): 3.00%
Crude Fiber (max): 7.00%
Ash (max): 18.00%
Calcium (min): 3.80%
Calcium (max): 4.80%'
Phosphorus (min): 0.60%
Salt (min): 0.25%
Salt (max): 0.75%
Sodium (min): 0.01%
Sodium (max): 0.50%
Vitamin A (min): 3,000 IU/LB
Vitamin E (min): 15 IU/LB
Total Microorganisms (min): 3.7 x 10( to the power of 8 I don't know how to type exponents on an hp) CFU/LB

[Digs]

My feeder insects are doing great on the new meal/superworm bedding. I now even feed it to the crickets and dubia roaches. I haven't really checked on the dubia roaches to see if they've been eating it but I had a small herd of crickets go after it in their dish.
I want to put them into ball amber jars to protect the vitamins and minerals inside from UV damage. I'm also concerned about what will happen to my coffee grinder due to the large amount of time I need to use it in order to grind the ingredients as fine as possible but I could perhaps just wait 15 minutes every time it feels like the grinder is beginning to get overheated.

[Elizabeth Freer]

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My feeder insects are doing great on the new meal/superworm bedding. I now even feed it to the crickets and dubia roaches. I haven't really checked on the dubia roaches to see if they've been eating it but I had a small herd of crickets go after it in their dish.
I want to put them into ball amber jars to protect the vitamins and minerals inside from UV damage. I'm also concerned about what will happen to my coffee grinder due to the large amount of time I need to use it in order to grind the ingredients as fine as possible but I could perhaps just wait 15 minutes every time it feels like the grinder is beginning to get overheated.

Are you sending the ingredients through your grinder more than once? Have you a lab to test the feeders before and after?

Overheating definitely kills the motor.

Last July my mini-grinder died. I'd "gently" used it about 10 years. I upgraded to a large Krups GX5000 model that carries a 2 year international guarantee. It's a $50 model that I found on sale for $37.