Can i freeze crickets

Cricket's are pretty much the main staple and I can't stand the mess and stench so I came up with the solution of freezing them. See above post and it works great for me and my reps. No mess, no dead crickets, no waste. If my reps are Happy and Healthy then I'm Happy. I think its a good idea. Hi, they might not know the difference, but feeding dead and not so well gutloaded crickets just can't be good in the long run.

I don't care what anyone says, my crickets don't smell at all. I keep about crickets at all times for my two panthers and they don't smell in my 10 gal fishtank. Mine don't smell either I don't even clean the tank very often and keep about twoo hundred at a time I believe freezing actually destroys a lot of the nutrition in the crickets.

I could be mistaken, but I know that pre-frozen foods are not recommended for other lizards like blue tongue skinks. They do it with pink mice for snakes when I freeze my food I'm not losing any nutrition I'm a GYM trainer and for health I make smoothies vegetables and fruit don't lose any nutrition.

I think its a great idea if u buy mini crickets they will always be mini crickets worms will be the size u got them as long as u gut load them before freezing it is no different then canned crickets that zoo med offers.

This is just my opinion the only knowledge i have on it is the human health classes I took to become a trainer so my opinion is just words. But the canned crickets aren't as nutritious. You didn't gutload them yourself for the specific reptile you're feeding. So scratch that. I also think that hunting down crickets is a great thing for your reptiles to do. In the wild they hunt them down, they dont just sit on a small tree all day hoping that big scary person in bright colors doesn't come back.

I think live food is far superior, though I also like cup feeding for when I dont have time to make sure all the food is eaten. I very much dislike chasing down crickets at the end of the day. Klinger New Member. My tree frogs and cham wont touch anything not living that doesnt have the wiggle factor.

I did not plan on feeding this way, but I ordered crickets and they never warmed up. Still waiting for the replacements by the way Weather has been cold here and with the holidays the box was extremely beat up. I just couldnt bear to throw them all out. It was a shame and I was fresh out and a snow storm I fed off the fresh to those who needed it ANyway, my Dragon loved them.

But I dont think I would do this on a regular basis. To me fresh is preferred to frozen wheather my food or my herps. Just my opinion. But it did work in the pinch. I ordered some locusts and crickets on the 18th and they showed up yesterday 21st along with a note on receiving live foods in cold weather though the post,it said that the live feed may arrive looking dead but they will in fact come round in about 4 hours after removing from the shipping box,the locusts were fine..

Shaboo10 New Member. I freezed my crickets for 6 mins. Did you not want them to die? You dont stick them in the freezer if you want them to slow down. You refrigerate them for a minute or two. Click to expand LSepkowski New Member. There are a couple pathways for flavor changes to happen. One mechanism is freezer burn — Freezer burn happens when frozen moisture in the crickets sublimates. This leaves patches of dehydrated cricket.

The dehydrated areas are much more susceptible to oxidation resulting of off flavor. Crickets have a high surface area to volume ratio so this is definitely something that can happen. Water can also recrystallize affecting texture.

Some bacteria are still active at frozen temperatures but much slower. Bacteria also contain enzymes that can speed up changes. There may also be enzymatic activity happening from cricket enzymes originating in the digestive organs. Eventually bacteria and enzymatic action are going to cause unwanted changes in flavor during prolonged storage. Apply a heat treatment before frozen storage to decrease bacterial load and denature enzymes.

Blanching for minutes would do the trick. Most vegetables are blanched before frozen storage to inactivate enzymes. Heat treatment will also denature the meat protein so if someone wanted to make sausage, they would need to add some other binder. Glazing crickets in ice provides a protective coating and limits oxidation. This is done by spraying frozen crickets with ice cold water until a glazed is formed. Alternatively, crickets can be dipped in an ice bath and refrozen. Glazing is commonly used for seafood.

Here is a link for glazing basics Seafish. Search Advanced search…. New posts. Search forums. Log in. Install the app. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.

You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Thread starter ashleyelsha Start date Aug 3, Status Not open for further replies. I brought the crickets straight home and put them in the freezer. This evening I took 5 out, dusted them, and fed them. At first he didn't seem intersted, so I nudged a few with my finger. He snatched the first one hesitantly and then chowed down on the rest!

It was awesome. So now I am going to order some in bulk online! I am going to gutlaod them for hours when they arrive and then freeze them. Huh, I'll be darned. That sounds like a really cool idea! Still going well. He is one fat and happy dragon.