I guess this really applies to all reptiles who are insectivorous, I just put it here because I only have a leopard gecko.

Insect Substrate Mix

• 12 grain cereal
• rolled oats
• red bran

Water Source
Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons of Agar Agar powder or Agar Agar flakes. (You can purchase Agar Agar at most health food stores.)
• 2 1/2 Cups of water.

Directions

• Mix together and bring to a boil and boil approx 2 minutes, Pour liquid into a shallow cake pan and let set in refrigerator for 10-15 minutes.
• After it's set you can draw a knife through the gel and cut it into small pieces or Large blocks. Transfer the pieces into a plastic container, cover and store in the refrigerator.
• This gel will not disintegrate into a mound of water even when kept at high temperatures.

You can also just use un-sweetened cooking gelatin.


Gutload Mix
Dry Mix

• 1 large box dry milk (8 quart size)
• 1 box rice baby cereal
• 8 oz. raw unsalted sunflower seeds
• 1 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 cup mixed unsalted nuts
• 1/4 cup coconut
• 1/16 cup brewer's yeast

Wet Mix

• sweet potatoes
• carrots
• collard greens, watercress greens, other greens
• citrus fruit
• melon

Directions

• You can just use whichever of these things you can get. Mix the wet and dry mix together in a food processor, blender, or coffee grinder. It should be a powder with some chunks.

Hope this helps everyone who reads this. Let me know how it goes. I made up the insect substrate, the gutload mix came from www.drgecko.com and was edited, and I found out about the agar-agar stuff when my mom was using it for a recipe.

what type insect are you proposing this for?

__________________
Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

I suppose pretty much anything including mealworms, crickets, etc. This excludes silk worms and waxworms as they only eat mulberry leaves and honeycombs (or something like that), respectively. If you think of any other exceptions, please post them.

Well its not really functional for crickets. The best substrate for crickets is no substrate. Crickets can smell really bad! With a grain substrate you are going to have to be changing it out so often that you are really wasting money. A bare floor is the easiest way to approach that. You just take a wisk broom and dustpan and sweep it up. The food should be kept in a shallow dish and refilled as needed.

If I recall Agar agar is a derivitive of seaweed and as such I would be concerned that it would mold.

__________________
Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

I raise my mealies on fortified multi-grain baby cereal....that way, I can use a simple reptile sand sifter (meant to be a pooper scooper) to seperate them from the substrate. It works wonderfully.

For a water source, I just soak some tissue or paper towel in water, and toss it on top. They chew it into a frothy cover that holds the perfect amount of humidity in without causing any mold at all.

The vet that has been checking up on my water dragon suggested a cricket food its this bag of already prepared food it just little round balls and I throw in some small pieces of apple for mostiure and some fresh veggies at times .

__________________
Love Always,
Audrey

Owned By,

1.0.0 Iguana Iguana -Louie
0.0.1 Avicularia avicularia (pink toe Trantula)-Muffy
0.1.0 Ceratophrys ornata (Pac Man Frog)-Sparticus
1.0.0 Albino Rat -conspericy
0.1.0 Betta-Alphie
0.0.1 Apple snail- Mr. Bubbles
1.1.0 Mutt puppy's- Socks & Meeko
1.0.0 fieance-Brett