Klemmeri food... Crix alternatives

[booboo]

I really do not want to have to deal with crickets not that i dont like them i just dont like having to order them all the time or taking all the space to breed them.
What are some other alternatives?
I breed fruitflies for my poison dart frogs but i think they would be a little small for a klemmeris staple food.

Any ideas

 

[JBReptiles]

MY Phelsumas eat Baby food....and i often feed them the crested gecko diet by T-rex.And they chow that down...

 

[mat.si]

Mixed menu is the best.
Fruit flies are great for babies and adults will eat them too, but I'd also feed them very small crickets. It's much better to offer the crickets in a cup (a yoghurt cup or an empty baby food jar do just fine), so they don't run all over the cage and hide.
It's actually dangerous for such a small gecko, if a cricket hidding in a terrarium grows too big. It could potentially nibble on the gecko at night.

And then also feed the exotic fruit baby food or/and any other food mixtures made for fruit eating geckos (like zoo med'd day gecko food, which can be feed dry) and don't forget to make the water available to the geckos at all times.

Matjaz

 

[the moof]

Jeff, is that ALL your geckos eat? no insects or anything?

 

[Joe Farah]

I fully agree with Matjaz (again).

P. klemmeri will accept a wide variety of foods and will benefit from a mixed diet. The youngsters and adults will eat all types of animals and i have witnessed mine eat the following:

crickets
fruit flies
meal worms/wax worms
spiders
moths
baby guppy fish!
house flies
small grass hoppers
ants
catapillers
and more....

The baby food and Day Gecko Diet are an important source of nutrition and reduce the need for insects.

Crickets are by no means necessary, they are just one of the most readily available feeder insects, so they are the choice of most keeps.

Wild moths are excellent for Phelsuma and can be easily caught at night by turning on an outside light at night and waiting for them to gather nearby.

"Variety is the Spice of Life" so give them a mixed diet whenever possible

 

[Joe Farah]

For the record - appropriately sized crickets are the main insect food for my adult klemmeri. For the babies it's fruit flies. The other food items listed above are a rare treat for them.

 

[Palex134]

would an adult klemmer go for 1/2 or 1/8 crickets? Thanks

by the way this is a great post, very benificial to me!

 

[Joe Farah]

Peter,

Most people say that "crickets should be as long as the geckos head is wide". That works well for klemmeri. But they will eat both surprisingly small and large items.

1/4 inch maybe ??? - I don't know exactly, I just eyeball them.

 

[Palex134]

ok thanks!

I am also going to try small mealies, fruit flies, day gecko deit, and clarks.

How often does everyone feed their klemmeri?

 

[Joe Farah]

I keep baby food in there every day, but it only gets replaced with fresh stuff every 3 days or so.

I give them insects every 2-3 days too.

The babies are fed every day with fruitflies and sometimes even twice per day. I give them constant access to baby food and change it every other day or when it dries out or disappears.

 

[booboo]

ok i think i will be fine then! maybe crickets will be more of a treat. I have found that ghann.com has this 100 crix can of crix (cant remember exactly) and you can setup for a little "plan" where they send them out weekly for up to six weeks then your have to pay again etc. Maybe i will do that but request it be done every other week. (its cheap too!)

Well i will feed:
*Frutiflies Hydei and melonagaster ( i will enrich the medium specifically for the geckos)
*Baby food (with supplementation)
*Phelsuma "food" (i know there are a couple types but which do you think is the best?)
*crickets (on occasion)

Still looking for more ideas.

Palex134 what is clarks?

 

[mat.si]

And I agree with Joe.
How nice it is, if people agree with each other.

It's very interesting to hear, that they will also eat small fish.

I breed all the food items myself, because there's no available supply of feeder insects in my country.
I breed three species of crickets, two species of mealworms and two species of roaches.
It's a lot of work, but I have no other choice and always all sizes of well fed insects available.

I also bred fruit flies, but it was just for baby klemmeri and I stopped, when I found out that even new born klemmeri babies are eating very small crickets without problems.

The adults can eat rather big crickets, but I think they prefer smaller ones.
If the cricket is too big, they can grab it and kill it and not always eat it.

A German friend of mine, who I originally got my klemmeri from, also fed his klemmeri with these little "silver fish" insects (or what are they called?).
He actually brought some a bit bigger species from Madagascar and bred them. They didn't climb or jump.
Klemmeri liked to eat them.

If you order very small crickets and not keep them too warm, they will grow slower and you can use them for a longer time.
Just feed them quality food.

Matjaz

 

[booboo]

what is a quality cricket food? Gut load?

 

[Haroldo]

what is a quality cricket food? Gut load?

A quality cricket food can either be a formulated complete diet for crickets or a culminaton of foods like bran, veggies, fruit, etc.
Essentially whatever you feed the cricket WILL be it's gutload. However, I should note there has been some question as to how effective gutloading really is with crickets. Given their small gut size and high shell to meat ratio, some have posited that feeding crickets especially healthy food (overly unnnecessary) might be better served just dusting them with quality supplements such as RepCal and Herptivite. Sorry if this is a bit of a tangent, just couldn't help myself.

 

[Palex134]

that was great information haroldo, I acually found it very benificial. So now I can stop buying $7 gut load!

 

[phaylanx]

some other foods-----pill bugs----3rd generation captive----they are parasite carriers-----the worst parasites make them seek the day light-----catch the small ones----put one to A CONTAINER RAISE IT FOR ONE YEAR------BY THAT TIME IF INFECTED IT SHOULD BE DEAD-----PUT COLONY TOGETHER OF THOSE YET LIVING------CATCH OUT THE YOUNG-----MAKE ANOTHER COLONY--------WATCH FIRST COLONY TO SEE IF IT IS HEALTHY-----IF SO YOU NOW CAN FEED THE OFFSPRING OF THE SECOND COLONY---------USE NOTHING BUT STERILE SOIL------NEMATODES ARE ONE OF THE PROBLEMS YOU DO NOT WANT-----INFECTIONS COME FROM BIRD DROPPINGS----ROLLY POOLYS===PILL BUGS LIKE POOP

--------------------
ANOTHER FOOD FOR ADULTS USUALLY OVER LOOKED IS THE PUPA OF MEAL WORMS-----THE GOLD DUST JUST LOVE THEM

===========
THE MINITURE DARKLING WORMS ARE GOOD AS WELL----BUT THEY WILL DESTROY YOUR PLANTS---AND SOME WILL ESCAPE THE BEST OF FEEDING PLANS------GUT LOAD THEM WITH WET CALCIUM------WORKS BETTER THAN CRICKET DUST---I SUGGEST WE START A THREAD OF DIFFERENT FOODS USED AND HOW TO USE THEM---------ANIMALS ARE TOOO VALUABLE TO LET DIE BECAUSE WE DID NOT KNOW BETTER