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Can 'O Crickets/canned silkworms from Exoterra

Jadormdrache

Jadormdrache

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well I was in my local petstore and ive been looking at canned food for awhile. sorta getting tired of crickets getting all over the place. But, ive never tried these products and I wondered what the community thought about either Can Crickets or Silkworms in a can made by Exoterra
would you use either of these products? have you used these products?would you use them again and would you recommend them? thankyou for your time, I don't want to try it and they end up being poisonous to leopard geckos or something.
 
well...

It is my experience that Leopard Geckos do not eat anything that is not alive and kickin'. Their eyesight is not very good, and unless prey is moving they will not notice it. Besides, the cost of freeze-dried feeder insects is waaayy more expensive than live food, not to mention if the canned stuff is dried, there is no moisture or water-soluable nutrients in it. I say go for the real food!
 
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This food is moist. It's vacuum packed and vitamin enriched also. But I still dust it epsecially for my breeder females. Put a few live mealies in there and watch them go to town. Mine seem to really like it. So far we've tried crickets, small grasshoppers, mealies and silkworms.

Makes it nice to have something to fall back on if you run out of feeders for those of us that don't breed our own. One warning though, it smells like bugs! Stinky bugs! :)
 
Waste of Money

I will never use this, my gecko deserve better and I am not too sure how good the nutritional value of these insects are. Even though they are moist, they can not come close to live feeders.

The canned insects are a lot more convenient, but you sacrifice quality.
 
Milwaukee Reptiles said:
Roaches!!! Clean(er), cheap (to maintain a colony), and healthy for your gecko! Not to mention they aren't nearly as annoying as crickets!
Click to expand...

No Joke! I detest crickets!! I get my roaches from a good friend who breeds them as my family and my boss think they are "dirty"--yeah, right, they are only as dirty as you let them be, they are easier to clean up after than crickets.

I use the canned foods as supplements, basically. Have you ever been snowed in? I have. I'm not dieing or wrecking my only source of transport to go get gecko food. I love my gecks and only feed them top quality foods, but they do not repair cars nor do they work to get their own food, I do that and gratefully.

I feel these canned sources of feed have their place when used responsibly and should be given more than a sniff and a second glance.

Use them as you feel comfortable, but do not sell them short if you've never had the cajones to try them. My gecks are fine, healthy, breeding and obviously are not dead from eating this food so there could be something in those cans besides air...
 
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how about using to give variety to your leopard geckos, atm I feed them mealworms/crickets thru the week and waxworms on sunday. they have grasshoppers/silkworms/ect also since you mention a roach colony, what kind of roaches should I use? and are there any small enough for say 6 week olds or would the roaches have to much of a shell anyways for a 6 week old?
 
Jadormdrache said:
thats grasshoppers/silkworms/ect in a can, when I read it it sounded like my leopard geckos were keeping them as pets, sorry.
Click to expand...

LOL! I didn't read it that way, but that would be a sight wouldn't it?! I thought Leopard Gecko pets were human?! :bolt01: :)

I usually use live foods, primarily Dubia Roaches, Mealies, Waxworms and Crickets. About every three days I add canned food to their feed dish (say canned mealies or crickets or silkworms) mixed with some live food (such as mealies or waxworms). The movement attracts them and once they start eating they don't stop till the dish is empty.

I dust the canned food lightly with T-Rex/S-Fire Leopard Gecko dust every other time for my adults and every time for juvies and breeders.

Edit: The roaches and/or crickets can be obtained in different sizes depending on the size of your Geckos. Baby feeders for baby Geckos!
 
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.
 
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