Oops for Crickets!

To answer the original question, feeding crickets moldy human grade food is very different than mold non-human grade food. Keep in mind that nothing should be allowed to become moist and mold. Animal grade grain products, especially corn and soy-based products like chicken mash, dog food, ferret food, and even monkey chow, may contain grain products that have been exposed to blight, which is a type of mold. This mold can lay dormant in the kernels, and when allowed to become wet it will begin to grow again. This mold may be a type of aflatoxin, more specifically aspergillus flavus, which can be deadly. Crickets can build up huge amounts of this toxin in their bodies with no health risk, but the chronic ingestion of these toxic feeders by the animals that eat them will poison them.

The moral of the story is NOT to allow your gut-load to become wet.

Another helpful thought....and I know I have problems with this on occasion, is to make sure that your crickets have good airflow through their container so moisture doesn't build up in there.....thus making any food less likely to mold at all.

have good airflow through their container so moisture doesn't build up in there.....thus making any food less likely to mold at all.

Very good point!

Thank You for your help you guys. I keep 500 crickets in a 20 gallon tank with a screen lid. We do feed them that Flukers grain Kellih. I read here that Flukers isn't very nutritional but I feed it just for another food, a type of grain. Thats pretty much all they sell around here. They have four cut up carboard egg cartons and then in the middle two food dishes. The Flukers grains are sprinkled over the cartons. Healthy Cheerios goes in one dish, and the other we have done oranges, but also do red grapes, carrots, lettuce and I took your advice on the kale Kellih. I read about the oranges on a care sheet somewhere. They said oranges were good and good to rub your gutload and calcium on. I never had a problem with my oranges molding, just those pears I tried.

They pretty much eat from all the Healthy stuff I feed the Rats. The Rats don't get oranges though, and no not from the Rats specifically, from the fridge. lol I have tried the healthiest dog food I could find before but didn't like it and stopped feeding it. The water....we've tried a bunch of different stuff there and didn't like the any of it. The oranges we liked for the moisture value. We've tried a water dish, water dish with cotton balls in it. The best thing I've tried we like better are those water gel cubes. Easier, easier, easier. We also don't keep heat on them. They sit in our spare bedroom and the house is kept at 70. We just buy the size we need. We never heat our crickets unless they are babies and to small. I think I'm doing ok with my crickets? At least I'm not giving them Hershey Kisses. lol I read about somebody doing that on another forum.