How to start the gut loaded process

[alcolton]

Evie is 4 to 5 months old or so, and she weighs 42 grams...she is getting over MBD (I think she is almost back 100%!) She is only 6 inches long...so maybe she is younger than that, I'm not sure...

She loves her crickets, but I need to gut load them up. I was wondering the steps to get that process started. Any tips would be great!

I gave her turnip greens for the first time last night, and today she is going to acorn squash for the first time. I am going to prepare it later this afternoon, how do you all prepare it? Do you put it in the microwave for a little bit for it to get soft to cut it? Or do you bake it?

Also, I am working on giving her more veggies/fruit/etc, how do you all get your beardies to eat it all?

Thanks everyone!!

 

[PumpkinJelly]

Gut-Loading is essential to the health of any lizard, as feeders such as crickets and roaches don't have as much nutrients needed for a reptile if they're not properly gut-loaded. Gut-Loading is just feeding your feeders a high-nutrient diet so that they're full of good things that will be delivered to your reptile when eaten. There are many ways to gut-load feeders. I personally use crickets, and I have to means of gut-loading. I buy a gut-loading cricket food from my local PetSmart. It has needed calcium mixed in as well as a diet many other things. You can buy it in a dry form (as i do) it looks almost like sandy-dirt, or you can buy it moist cubes. I not only give my crickets a diet of this, but I give them a leaf of collard greens. I feed my Beardies collard greens, and whatever they don't eat in a serving I just put in the cricket keeper. I also cut a slice of orange and set it in the cricket keeper, as it gives them water and more nutrients. You should always gut-load crickets 24 hours before giving them to your pet. My methods seem to work for me since I've seen rapid-growth from my two baby Beardies whom I've had for about a month. They enjoy their crickets a lot and so does their tummys!

You should give the crickets the dry or wet cricket diet every other day OR when it's near-gone, but give them a fresh piece of collard green (or any other dark leafy green but NOT lettuce) & orange slice every day, and remove the old pieces. When you run out of crickets, it's important that you dump out all of the contents of the cricket keeper (their exoskeletons, dead crickets, excess food, poop, etc) so keep the odor to a minimum and keep the risk down of giving something bad to your beardies. It's also essential to the crickets that they live in a healthy enviornment in the duration before being fed to your lizard. Crickets are nasty, trust me! I hate the smell, and they're so messy! But hey, my Beardies couldn't go without 'em!