purina puppy chow for gutloading?

last week I bought a bag of purina puppy chow. is it good to gutload the crickets? it have:
crude protein 27%
crude fat 12%
crude fiber 4%
moisture 14%
linoleic acid 1.5%
calcium 1.1%
phosphorus 0.9%
iron 200 mg
vitamin E 100 IU

in the ingredient part it say that it have vitaqmin e,a, b12 and D3
i am horried about what amount of vitamin A it have but i dont thing is much.

would it be good to give it to the crickets?

?

Dog food as a cricket gut-load can cause bacterial infections for your geckos. When dry corn-based chow also contains non-pasteurized meat by-products and it becomes moist (even in the cricket's gut,) can go rancid with bacteria as well as produce aflatoxins which can be poisonous to your geckos. Stick with 10-grain cereals and fresh produce for gut-loading your feeders.

...every day. I have heard of a lot of people using dog and cat foods for gut load. I have never before heard about it causing bacterial infections. How about using frozen veggies? Does anyone else feed frozen?

I have researched gutloaded crickets and what I have found is that you can feed them cat or dog food as long as it doesn't have the red dye in it. I have used frozen veggies. They love green beans. But crickets have to have a high protein diet. The veggies I think are more for the water in them. But I don't know I could be wrong. But my crickets and Geckos are doing just fine.

I would agree. I usually grind up good quality cat food, maybe some dog food, mix in some fish flakes, add some calcium mix well and present to the crix in a pot pie tin. I put the veggies on top of the water cotton balls so they do not get the floor wet. I have found that if you keep the food, veggies and water off the floor, and rinse the cotton balls off quickly while wetting every day and changing them every few days, every thing stays clean and does not smell bad. I then only have to clean the crix bin completely about every 2-3 weeks. It seems they do not poop in the food bowl as I never see droppings in there and I check for them. But they do on the water cotton. weird huh. I have been doing it for about 3 months now and I lose very few crix. Mostly just the ones that do not get out of the way when I place the dishes. Maybe it is that whole corn based thing. I do not feed my pets food that had corn as the top ingredient, (except the horses, when I give them a treat) although I think it may have some corn in it, I make sure the meat is the main ingredient.

I have direct experience with bacterial infections in my geckos caused from dry dog food as gut-load. The meat by-products in these feeds are not pasteurized and can become rancid in the GI systems of the crickets. This poses no problem for the insect, but the chronic ingestion of these crix by the geckos can have damaging results.

Also, the corn used in dry commercial dog/cat food is from a low-grade of grain that did not pass the UDSA's approval for human consumption. Most of this corn has been exposed to blight, (a fungus), and when the chow is allowed to become wet, can produce an Aflatoxin, (usually Aspergillus flavus) which is a poisonous toxin that can can kill your gecko.


Resource: Frye, FL. Reptile Diseases: An Atlas of Care and Treatment. 1991. TFH Publishing, Inc., Neptune City NJ.

today i will buy the ingredients to make a gutloading from www.adcham.com all the people tell me that it is great

Among the ingredients in the gutload that I use are:

Spirulina
Blue Green Algae
Bee Pollen
Flax Seed
Kelp
Blueberries
Spinach
Carrots
Wheat Grass
Barley Grass

Thanks for the warning on the dog/cat food. Do you just use any 10 grain cereal and then supplement with assorted veggies ? Or do you look for a specific brand? I do not think I could find the monkey chow called for on the adcham.com and I saw a nutritional site that showed spinach as being extreamly high in phospherous (it is phosperous and calcium that need a balance isn't it? I know the other thing started with a P anyway.) so it throws the whole calcium/ phosperous balance way out of whack. (Sorry if I came across ditzy there but I have never been a scholar and tend to only retain the important details. ie spinach=bad.) So anyway the 10 grain cereal makes the most sense to me.