Is this recommended. I know what you can feed them, but was looking for easier.

Depends on what you intend on using. lol You can easily use quality, prepackaged gutload foods. Its just a matter of what you use. You will still need to supply some sort of moisture though.

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i haven't ever tried it. I read on a bunch of websites that you can take dry cat food, dust it with calcium/vitamin powder and put a bunch out. I do this for my crickets, as well as a small water dish and a few veggies. They seem to like it a whole lot.

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My name is Liz
Do what's best for the animal, not what's best for you.

Id suggest using water gel and not water, Crickets are very very stupid. 1 drop they drown lol. For food, you can go to the feed store or know someone who has chickens and use egg laying mash. Its grains with a bunch of calcium for female chickens to lay eggs.

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You can also fold paper towels, put them in a dish, and then soak them with water. It's cheaper, but messier because you have to change the paper towels.

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"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines." - John Benfield

You can use that, but if you dont change it daily it will start bacteria and get nasty fast

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for the water, I keep meaning to get one of those sponges that people use in hermit crab tanks. The rocks get kinda scummy and its a pain to clean them without dropping them down the garbage disposal.

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My name is Liz
Do what's best for the animal, not what's best for you.

I always used an extremely shallow dish (actually the lid to a jar) and just lightly coated the bottom with water. It mostly worked because it was knee deep to them, so they could get back out. But, as you said, crickets are extroadinarily stupid, and occasionally, I still found one dead in the water dish.

I've never used prepackaged food to gutload the crickets, though. I used to look up what fruits and vegitables each animal should be eating, then I'd feed them those. You can make a paste of those foods and the vitamins and feed that to the crickets.

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"Let's eat, Grandpa!"
"Let's eat Grandpa!"

Punctuation. It saves lives.

I just let the water gel or rocks in there a week and dump them. I have an endless supply to them lol. Cleaner than the sponge or paper towel to me.

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I mentioned the egg crate and I am not sure he gets what I am saying since he said "but they also climb on the outside".

I use the gel. It was recommended by someone talking to an employee at PetSmart. I was going to get the reusable water pillows. They are just such little crappers I don't want that soaking in the sink. Which is what my son does. Nice when you go to brush your teeth around waterlogged crickets stuck to the side of some dish sitting in the sink. I have found soda (pop) bottle covers are the right size for food/water dishes.