Uroplatus Phantasticus questions.

[Koda]

I have been researching these guys for about a year now. I hope to be able to pick some up this August and I had a couple of questions about diet.

Do all of you that have satanics feed gut-loaded crickets? I pretty much own exclusively Rhacodactylus species of gecko and don't require crickets as I just feed CGD exclusively. In the past I have found crickets to be a constant pain in the ***, with them arriving dead in winter or local pet stores being out of pinheads and so forth. Then comes the problem of keeping the pinheads alive when they do arrive. Maybe I just have a hard time with the smaller crickets as I can always keep the larger ones alive.

Is there an alternative to crickets or are they the easiest in everyones opinion? How do those of you that use crickets keep them, purchase them, ect.

Thanks for any help,

Chris

 

[D.B.Johnson]

For me crickets are the easiest. That doesn't mean I'm crazy about them. You shouldn't ever need pinheads for the phants as the hatchlings can eat crickets that are one or two stages past pinhead. They will also eat fruit flies, which can be nice as you can keep culturing them as long as you need them. Ones raised eating crickets seem to grow a bit faster in my experience, but I guess that's another thread...

Doug

 

[Geckos and Goannas]

Dougs right. I had Dandrobates and had to go through the pin heads so I know what you mean. I use fruit flys (D. hydei. spell?) and #10 or #2 stage crickets.

 

[Gecko_Danny]

You can try roaches (Blaptica dubia) is a good roach, they are quite inexpensive too.

 

[y9pema]

i start my hatchlings on fruitflies (D.hyedi) for about 2-3 weeks then i switch to 10 day old crickets. otherwise my adults get crickets and dubia roach nymphs. roaches go in a little feeding bowl otherwise they dig into the substrate.

 

[Koda]

i start my hatchlings on fruitflies (D.hyedi) for about 2-3 weeks then i switch to 10 day old crickets. otherwise my adults get crickets and dubia roach nymphs. roaches go in a little feeding bowl otherwise they dig into the substrate.

They can't get out of the bowl? How hard are fruit flies to deal with?

 

[y9pema]

fruit flies are kinda a pain in the but. i put mine in the fridge for a few seconds to slow them down. then open one side of the cuture shake in to a bag and close it up real quick. no more than 3-5 seconds otherwize they freeze. i try to get the hatchlings on crickets as soon as i can. dubia roaches cannot climb

 

[Calfirecap]

I've been using crickets for years and all things considered, they are not that bad. When I was raising snakes I had to breed mice, and that ended up being a big deal, cleaning, feeding and freezing. An enormous amount of work! As for crickets, I order them, they arrive, I feed them, then feed them out. A thousand or so a week, not too bad. As for the hatchings, the phants do well on one week crickets..

Lawrence