Can 'O Crickets/canned silkworms from Exoterra

roaches roaches roaches, it seems alot of people like to use roaches but i havnt,i havnt used the prepared food either but i do kinda like the idea of a little more variety(but how can it top fresh natural uncut food). as far as the roaches im very curious can they be the main source of nutrition (right now i use mealworms and mix it up with waxworms,silkworms and occaisional pinkys) or should they be the little extra in their diet.oh ya i think crickets suck and ive heard they arent as nutritious as mealies so why bother

where's a good place to get roaches? also, ive heard mealworms cant be fed to leopard geckos till a certain age, and variety is always better( so ill never stop using crickets, I would just prefer they weren't my main food source for my geckos)

varietys definately the way to go but i would make crickets the extra in the diet not the staple. and i have never heard of the leos not being able to eat mealies at any age if its a size thing they do come in mini.

Just a word of warning about the canned foods. Once open they must be refrigerated. even then they will only last about a week in the frig before they go bad. If our geckos will eat them its nice to keep a can on hand for emergencies or to use a can for variety but as a staple they would be quite expensive.

Steve

Everyone feeds their Leos differently and it must be okay because all I see on this site are pictures of plump little lizards!

I love my "kids". No matter what I do in life or where I go I will always have a smiling Leo face to wake up in the morning.

I have an assortment of canned leo foods but have never used them, I bought them in the fall just in case something happened during the winter that I would need them but I never needed to try them.

Isn't gutloading a very important source of nutrition....you can't exactly gutload a canned bug very easily....

from what i understand they come with extra nutrients.
that makes me wonder tho, how about preservatives, just cuz our food is packed with that crap does that mean the geckos should be exposed to it even if your leos seem as healthy as they could be?
i dont know that it does have pres. but seems like it would

Gutloading is the key to live insects, but crickets can live for some time without eating anything so gutloading them gets the nutrients in their system to pass along to your herp. Some herp owners go to the pet store, but a doz crix, never feed them and never dust and dump them in the cage which is really sad that they don't know what to do.

The canned foods are gutloaded nutrient filled insects (supposedly) and no preservatives, they are supposed to be highly nutrient fed bugs, cooked right in the can so all the nutrients are there naturally, that is why once you open the can it is only good for a few days to a week, no preservatives. But like I said I have never used them but do have an assortment just in case.

I order 10,000 mealies at a time and I looked it up today and I use 10,000-15,000 in 4 weeks depending on how many babies I am feeding and how many pinks the adults eat per month. So I always have enough for a few weeks and if I know weather is going otbe bad I order early.

My honest 02 cents is that the canned insects are probably not much different than frozen rodents, the nutrition is there from gutloading the insects prior to the preperation of the food and is only good for a period of time after thawing/opening the can.

There was one person I remember from a while back that was selling babies raised on canned insects only, the ad said soemthing about the buyer not having to have live foods around all the time.

Here is the info on them:
The Exo Terra canned foods are a convenient way to feed insects. These insects (and snails) have been cooked in the can to maintain nutritional value, flavour and aroma.
It also softens the exoskeleton of the insects for easier digestion and breaks the bonds between the collagen protein to make it absorbable by reptiles. Collagen is an important fibre that aids in building bone, cartilage, skin and claw structures. The canned insects have the same nutritional value as live insects but are easier to digest.
No live insects need to be fed in addition to these canned foods.

Well since they are cooked it will destroy some of the nutritional value... cooking denatures proteins and destroys amino acids...which are necessary parts of the diet.