Can axies eat crickets?

hi all,
just wondering if my axie could eat live crickets

Thanks
James:yin-yang:

Well it could, but you'd have a hard time getting it to. Crickets float so the Axolotl would have to be pretty hungry to bother getting it.

If you feed him with tweezers he´ll probably take them without problems. Just make sure they re gut-loaded or dusted, because they are not very nutritious otherwise.

azhael said:

If you feed him with tweezers he´ll probably take them without problems. Just make sure they re gut-loaded or dusted, because they are not very nutritious otherwise.

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What Rodrigo said except I would add that dust would wash off pretty much immediately and gut loading is pretty ineffective. It is much better to stick with more nutritious and easier to feed items.

Abrahm, in my scarce experience, if you shake the excess dust properly, it doesn´t really wash off, it actually creates a coat over the cricket that´s water proof. Maybe this only happens with certain brands though so yes, sticking to more apropiate food items is best.

Abrahm said:

What Rodrigo said except I would add that dust would wash off pretty much immediately and gut loading is pretty ineffective. It is much better to stick with more nutritious and easier to feed items.

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How is gut loading ineffective?

I've fed crickets as a treat, but they're really too much effort to bother. They only got crickets because I'd bought crickets for other animals and had some left over.

Greatwtehunter said:

How is gut loading ineffective?

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It is ineffective as a way of obtaining a proper calciumhosphorus ratio. Ed Kowalski went into pretty good detail about it in this thread. Gut loading to impart other vitamins and minerals may be more effective, I'm not sure.

Abrahm said:

It is ineffective as a way of obtaining a proper calciumhosphorus ratio. Ed Kowalski went into pretty good detail about it in this thread. Gut loading to impart other vitamins and minerals may be more effective, I'm not sure.

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Thank you for that info. Saying that gut loading is ineffective is such a broad statement I wasn't for sure which nutritional requirement you were reffering to. Of course I am so used to gut loading and then dusting crickets for my terrestial animals that I sometimes forget that the aquatic caudates need to acquire it in a different way.

Could i feed him just for a treat?

Not much of a treat I'm afraid, they're not especially tasty I'd imagine. If you want a treat go for waxworms, they're awesome for making an animal happy and puts some weight on it.

Jamesthenewt said:

Could i feed him just for a treat?

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You can certainly feed crickets to provide a little variety to your axolotl's diet.

Greatwtehunter said:

Thank you for that info. Saying that gut loading is ineffective is such a broad statement...

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Sorry about that. I usually run on the assumption that gut loading is to provide a proper calciumhosphorus ratio so the fault is on me for not being clear.

Hi!!!!

About the crickets, if you decide to use them I think you will have to take out the cricket´s rear legs. They might be harmful as they could be a little "sharp" (sorry, dont know the word)

I bought crickets to give to my axolotls. I'm not entirely sure I'll do it again - if I ever do, I will certainly get the largest crickets I think the axolotls can fit into their mouths. The small ones came in a box of about a million crickets (sorry, girl moment: legs, antennae, yuck) and as Ian pointed out, crickets float. Let me please add that they can also swim, at least well enough to get to the edge of the tank and jump out. You definitely have to hold the cricket down to the axolotl's mouth, either with a tweezers or with your hand, unless the axolotl has somehow already learned to feed from the water's surface.

As to the nutrition, I am sure everyone else here knows a lot more about it than I do; for crickets as a snack, I was told just to feed the crickets overnight first with a slice of carrot or cucumber. Incidentally, I was also told to cool (refrigerate) the crickets before feeding them to the axolotls, too, because it makes them more slow-moving.

After catching a cricket days later in a totally different room of my house, I decided that woodlice would be a much better (easier and more practical) alternative snack.

-Eva

blueberlin said:

As to the nutrition, I am sure everyone else here knows a lot more about it than I do; for crickets as a snack, I was told just to feed the crickets overnight first with a slice of carrot or cucumber. Incidentally, I was also told to cool (refrigerate) the crickets before feeding them to the axolotls, too, because it makes them more slow-moving.



-Eva

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When I first read this I thought you where serving up some sort of exotic cricket salad to the axolotl as an evening snack !