# What do you feed your crickets?



## Bess (Apr 6, 2009)

Those of you who feed your hedgie crickets instead of/in addition to mealworms, what do you feed them as they're waiting to become lunch? All of the cricket foods on the market are geared toward reptiles, i.e., they are packed with calcium, and I'm not sure if that is the healthiest thing to be gut-loading the crickets with before feeding them to a hedgehog.


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## HedgeMom (Nov 7, 2008)

If you've never kept crickets, you might want to rethink it. They stink. The odor of a cricket tank is the most disgusting smell in the world. Since a hedgehog doesn't eat that many crickets, it's just easier to buy a half dozen at a time and be done with it.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

I have to buy crickets for my bearded dragons, and to keep the smell down I put a small layer of coconut fiber down on the bottom of the tank.

I gut-load the crickets with high-quality cat or dog foods and fruits and veggies. For water it is easy to put a baby food jar lid with a folded napkin and get it wet. That way the crickets can suck the water out but not drown. (If you let them get big, the females will lay their eggs in the water dish, though, just so you know)


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

What about feeding "cricket" food? I know most kinds are very high in calcium which I'm guessing isn't too safe for hedgies but I'm pretty sure that's what the pet stores feed them. I only buy a couple at a time and its only a matter of a few days before my hedgie will eat them all. So is it ok to feed them the cricket food in the meantime? Or should I be feeding something else?


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

I've never fed "cricket food" or "cricket water", but my guess is it wouldn't hurt in that small a quantity. If you are feeding several large, gut-loaded crickets, then what you were feeding them before would matter more. Just make sure there aren't any extra-nasty chemicals or preservatives in the food.


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

LizardGirl said:


> I've never fed "cricket food" or "cricket water", but my guess is it wouldn't hurt in that small a quantity. If you are feeding several large, gut-loaded crickets, then what you were feeding them before would matter more. Just make sure there aren't any extra-nasty chemicals or preservatives in the food.


Sounds good I will make sure there's nothing bad in it. I think I'll stick to feeding fruits and some cat kibble over the cricket food but I might try out the water crystals, just because I have a feeling a paper towel would dry up too fast since it's so dry in my house. You mentioned you used coconut fiber to keep the smell down, where would I find that???


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## Shelbys Mom (Mar 27, 2009)

I believe you can find the coconut fiber in the reptile section of a pet store.
It's used for bedding for reptiles as well as spiders.


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## LizardGirl (Aug 25, 2008)

Yep, you can get compressed bricks of it for fairly cheap. I *think* the kind I got was Exo-Terra, I may be wrong. The brick cost around $3 and lasted quite a while.


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## SnufflePuff (Apr 16, 2009)

LizardGirl said:


> Yep, you can get compressed bricks of it for fairly cheap. I *think* the kind I got was Exo-Terra, I may be wrong. The brick cost around $3 and lasted quite a while.


Thanks! I still haven't been able to find it anywhere, some pet store guy tried to sell me cat litter deoderizer as the "better alternative" and I kept looking at him funny, I don't think he realized what I wanted it for :lol:


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