Best food to culture

[jungleboy01]

I have a northern leopard frog that is about quarter sized and a tiger salamander that is a couple inches long. I am sick of buying crickets and want to culture something to feed them. I have a culture of d.melanogaster but that can't feed my salamander. Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Kaysie]

Lobster roaches. They're nutritious, full of calcium, they're not noisy like crickets, they're easy to culture.

 

[froggy]

How do you know the lobster roaches are calcium rich? The paper I posted here: http://www.caudata.org/forum/f1173-...itional-value-alternative-feeder-insects.html
shows that all the roaches they tested (not including lobsters, unfortunately) have poor Ca ratios of between 0.08 and 0.30.

 

[jungleboy01]

Could I just dust them. And how big are they?

 

[AeonMapa]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned earthworms! They are simply the best choice to feed your animals, being the most nutritionally complete. No need for calcium powders.

They are also extremely easy to culture, just google DIY earthworm bin and you'll have at least 10 viable methods to use depending on your location and weather. Culturing them is also very economical as they will consume your food scraps, and you can use their castings as fertilizer for your plants. They can be cultured in something as small as a 5 gallon bucket.

There's no reason not to do it