Good Quality Food for Your Crickets Will Prevent Cannibalism and Increase Growth

Choosing the Right Food for Your Crickets can be Confusing Unless you Know What to Look For 

When feeding crickets an important factor in preventing cricket cannibalism is protein and Calcium. Crickets have a fast and furious life cycles (around 2-3 months) and a high demand for protein and energy.

Recent research in locusts has found that they have consumed a set amount of protein for the day, they would continue to eat relentlessly. Once their protein amount was met, they stopped eating. Crickets respond in a similar way. If protein rich foods are not readily available then their buddy next door is the perfect protein bar. As insects undergo regular molts, they can become susceptible to deficiencies in calcium and other minerals. Having quality food is just as important as having enough food.

If crickets are eating each other instead of their food, it may be a sign that the food you are offering is less attractive or unpalatable than their siblings. Our manuals have a whole chapter dedicated to this topic, however in summary you should aim to:

• Use a dry food mixture which has a mixture of plant and animal material, relatively high protein, and calcium. High protein option include, cat food and certain dog foods (working dog, puppy foods). A good quality dog food is preferable to cat food as it is high in protein; has a mix of animal and plant foods; and is cost effective. Other option some people use is rodent pellets.
• Chicken layer pellets are used to feed chickens when they are laying and therefore are high in calcium. A 50% mix of chicken layer pellets and high protein dog food is a good blend.
• Grinding the dry food into a broad range of particle sizes allows all age groups easy access to the food.
• The quality of dry food can vary widely, so if your crickets do not like a certain mixture, you may need to experiment with different dog/cat/rodent pellets etc.

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