Many lizard pets, such as bearded dragons, leopard and crested geckos, blue-tongued skinks, anoles and others need to eat insects to survive. Some lizard pets, such as leopard geckos, need more live than freeze dried insects.
But before you can feed your bearded dragon, gecko, blue-tongued skink, anole or other pet lizard any insects, you must gut-load them. You should also dust them with vitamins/minerals, but gut-loading is necessary to keep live insects alive before feeding to your lizard.
In this post, we will cover cricket and other insect gut-loading, best foods and care.
How much supplement to use for coating/dusting will depend on a particular lizard and its age. Check specific posts on supplementation about your pet lizard for more information on supplements.
Let’s review some questions before we cover care for different reptile feeder insect and how to gut-load them.
What is cricket and other insect gut-loading and why do I need to do it?
Gut-loading feeder insects is mandatory, because most of them are very low in minerals and vitamins. The process of gut-loading includes keeping the feeder insects in a container and feeding them a nutritious diet. This increases their nutritional value and your lizard will absorb the vitamins & minerals from these insects.
How long do I need to gut-load the crickets and other insects for?
As a general rule, you need to gut-load the insects for around 24 hours (1 day) before offering them to your pet lizard.
Do I really need to gut-load feeder insects before feeding my lizards?
Yes, if you have bought live insects, you must gut-load them for 24 hours before feeding to your lizard. Some freeze dried insects will be gut-loaded for you, and you will only need to dust them slightly. But with live food, you must gut-load them prior to feeding.
Which insects can I buy and keep?
Most common and popular feeder insects are crickets (banded, brown Acheta, black crickets), cockroaches (such as Dubia roaches like these, Madagascar hissing, discoid and Haitian roaches), mealworms, silkworms, Phoenix worms, Tomato hornworms. Other occasional fatty foods include waxworms, superworms.
How to breed crickets at home?
Breeding crickets at home can be made easy, and this can save you lots of money, especially if you have more than one pet. To breed crickets easily at home, you need to set up automatic food and water stations.
Where can I keep feeder insects?
You must keep your crickets, worms and other insects in an appropriately sized container. This container should have smooth sides and allow air flow with ventilation holes.
Smooth sides of the container will make sure that the insects don’t escape. Proper ventilation is a must with a large number of crickets and other insects, or they will die quickly.
You can buy a simple Cricket Pen for your feeder insects. It has a top lid for ventilation, trap doors and tubes that will make capturing of the insects easy. The small cricket pen should fit around 50 crickets in a small pen, and around 100 in a bigger pen. But it will depend on the size of the crickets or other insects.
How to use a cricket pen?
- To use it, open the top lid, add the quencher or other water source and food into the small bowls.
- After adding food, bring the bag with insects, make a small hole and release them into the cricket pen from the top. Keep the crickets and other insects in there for 24 hours for gut-loading.
- Most crickets and other insects will get inside and hide the black tubes.
- When you are ready to take them, pull the tube. The flap on the pen will shut automatically to prevent any escape from the container.
- Place your flat palm or paper on the tube, so that no insects fall out.
- To dust them with vitamins or calcium, throw them into a smooth sided dish or cup, coat with supplement and take it to the vivarium. Only use a pinch of a vitamin/calcium to lightly coat the insects. You can also use a cricket shaker to dust the insects easily.
- Take the tube to the vivarium and release them there.
If you don’t want to buy a cricket pen, take a large plastic container with smooth sides. Place a lid with holes for ventilation or cut holes on both sides and cover them with a mesh or other screening for ventilation.
Another insect pen idea is to get a 10 gallon aquarium (or larger to keep more) and have a screen cover on top of it.
Cleaning the cricket pen
After you empty the cricket pen, make sure to clean and disinfect it. Uneaten foods and feces will contaminate next set of insects. Contaminated insects will also pass the bacteria to your pet lizard, so cleanliness is important.
Gut-loading the insects – food and water
Water for crickets and other insects
Don’t offer insects any pure water – there is a big chance that they will drown. Placing pure water also means that insects will cause bacterial growth and will cause cross-contamination.
The best source of water for your crickets and other worms is a cricket drink with calcium or quencher, both in gel forms, designed specifically for feeder insects. You can also use water crystals for providing a safe source of water to your crickets, worms and other insects.
Apart from the cricket gel drinks, you can also offer feeder insects fruit slices for water. These can be apple slices, oranges, pears, bell peppers, melon pieces, carrots and some leafy greens.
Best food for crickets and other insects
Crickets and other insects need food for gut-loading.
Most reptile owners offer the feeder insects foods dusted with extra calcium. Crickets eat many foods, while some worms need a specific diet.
Most reptile owners decide to buy commercially prepared cricket and other feeder insect complete diet food. It is nutritionally balanced, soft and moist to be easily taken by insects. This can make your life easier if you don’t want to prepare the food yourself.
Feed your insects different foods such as rodent chow, bran flakes, grated squash. You can also offer grounded cereal – whole grain, wheat bran, white wheat and other types.
Other nutritious foods include turtle food, oatmeal, soy flour and corn flour. Also, you can feed them powdered milk, alfalfa, kale, mangoes, mustard greens, squash, dandelion leaves, sweet potatoes, beet greens, flax seeds, carrots and collard greens.
Another great idea for feeding is to get pet lizard food, properly grind it in a processor and offer to feeder insects!
You can use this Adult Bearded Dragon food for example, that is in a pellet form. This food has optimal levels of protein, fiber, fat, a balanced calcium vs. phosphorus ratio etc.
Grind all tough foods in a processor, otherwise insects won’t be able to eat them. Finely chop leafy greens, too.
Poor food choices for your feeder insects
Adding vegetables and leafy greens in your feeder insects’ diet will be beneficial. But not all leafy greens are suitable, and you need to avoid some.
Avoid feeding your feeder insects any iceberg or romaine lettuce, bread, corn, beans, tomatoes, cabbage, fish food (most of them have improper Calcium : Phosphorus ratios), dog or cat food, meat.
Meat, dog/cat food and fish flakes are very high in protein and will cause a buildup of uric acid in feeder insects. It will be then consumed by your pet lizard, which can cause gout.
Please note that feeding insects only leafy greens for food and water will not make them nutritious enough!
This list of products is suitable for most feeder insects. But make sure to never feed them foods that are toxic for your specific pet lizard!
Sprinkling feeder insect food with calcium
When preparing foods for your feeder insects, sprinkle them with calcium. Don’t use too much powder, only a pinch will be enough. Don’t forget that you will be also dusting the insects before feeding them to your lizard. Feeder insects should be lightly covered in a powder.
For dusting frequencies, check the care sheet for your type of pet lizard. Generally, you will need to dust insects with calcium supplement every day to feed babies and juveniles, and every other day for adults.
Multivitamins should be added occasionally, once a week to once in a month.
To dust crickets and other feeder insects with calcium, you can use a cricket shaker. It features a pipe to make catching and releasing of insects easy.
And now, let’s review how to take care of specific feeder insects and how to gut-load them.
If you want to slow down the insect growth and to make them inactive, place them in a fridge.
To heat the pen to appropriate temperatures, use a small under tank heater or heat emitting bulbs.
Provide your insects 8-10 hours of darkness a day.
Clean the cricket pen or container and make sure to check each feeder insect is clean of feces and molts before feeding it to your pet lizard.
Caring for and gut-loading feeder crickets
Crickets are the most popular choice of feeder insects. There are different crickets, but the most popular ones are 
banded ones, as they have a higher protein content (20% vs. 15%).
Don’t buy too many crickets – only as much as you will feed in around a week or so. If you keep too many crickets in a pen or container, they can die. Crickets often hide in the tubes and it can be hard for them to get out and feed again.
Ventilation can also be a big problem when keeping too many crickets together. Keeping crickets in a pen for too long will create an unpleasant smell. Always clean the pen after emptying it – otherwise feces and leftovers will contaminate new crickets.
Crickets love hiding, and you can provide a hide spot for them by placing cardboard tubes or something similar. In a cricket pen, they will be hiding in black tubes. Also, you won’t need any substrate when keeping crickets.
Keep the smooth sided container or a cricket pen at the ideal temperatures of around 77 F (or 25 degrees Celsius). If the room temperature falls below 70 degrees, provide a source of heat. With temperatures 77-85 F, crickets will start breeding quickly.
Feed crickets all the foods that we have discussed above or get commercially prepared cricket food and quenchers or water crystals for a water source.
Caring for and gut-loading mealworms
Keep mealworms in the temperature range between 70-75 degrees F (21-23 Celsius). If the temperature drops significantly, use an under tank heater or a lamp.
Mealworms will need a substrate – grind the substrate and fill the pen with around 50% substrate. Feeder mealworms will also eat this substrate. For the substrate, use cornflour (cornmeal), wheat flour, bran flakes, oatmeal, soy flour etc.
For the food, pick any from the list above and use quenchers/water crystals for water.
Caring for and gut-loading roaches
Most roaches can’t climb smooth surfaces, which makes escapes less likely. 
Cockroaches, especially Dubia roaches, are high in protein, so don’t overfeed them with high protein foods.
The comfortable temperature for roaches is around 72-85 F (22-29 Celsius), so if needed, increase the temperature externally with an under tank heater or lamps.
Roaches need hiding spots, so use cardboard tubes or something similar for this purpose. Feed the foods from the list above.
Caring for and gut-loading tomato hornworms
Most tomato hornworms that you buy (including these ones), come in a cup with the food and substrate needed to gut-load them and keep them alive.
If you buy tomato hornworms without food, feed them dandelion leaves, mustard and collard greens, chow and other foods discussed above.
Optimal temperatures for tomato hornworms are around 70-80 degrees F (21-27 Celsius). If you want them to grow faster, keep them at 80 degrees, but if you want to slow down the growth, keep them at around 60 degrees F (15.5 Celsius).
Thank you for reading this gut-loading guide! If you need more information on supplementation, read the specific guides for pet lizards.