Feeding schedule?

My emps seem to like to eat a load of crickets in like a week then just not eat for the next week and so on is that ok for them?

whats a load of crickets?

that sounds normal to me.

sometimes they will eat whatever you offer and then go on a diet.

3-4 large crickets seems to be the normal and suggested regime.


mine personally would eat anything i offered for the first few months then stopped eating for a month and now they eat 3 crickets at once in one week and they dont show signs of hunger.

Mine eats about 3 large crickets a week and gets a worm treat every so often.

By a load i mean they eat like 10 in a week then just don't eat for the next week.

I meant to tell you guys about a little experiment I did a few weeks ago. We're in the worse drought Texas has had since the weather has been recorded. It's next to impossible to get any thing from the wild and store bought crickets are expensive. So I decided to try night crawlers. And my emps loved 'em and talk about gettin' fat. Doesn't seem to be causing any problems other than them just gettin' fat. For those who don't know night crawlers are:

Lumbricus terrestris


Very cheep and huge, measuring up to 25 cm in length and up to 1 cm in diameter.
For what it's worth, 2cents!

I would think nightcrawlers would be fine. I mean, wouldn't that be something they might encounter in the wild anyway?

Probably not the Canadian nightcrawler LOL, but it's possible they'd encounter some kind of earthworm!

reminds me of that book "How to Eat Fried Worms".

This is just hear say, but I have read that worms can carry internal parasites.

Not hear say Street, it's true they carry many many internal parasites including Protozoa, Platyhelminthes, Nematodes; the real question is "what affect do these have on emps". Crickets and roaches are notorious for caring nematodes. We have to treat our buildings all the time to keep our Marmosets from eating them and getting infected. We know they have adverse affect on mammals, but I don't know what the affect is on emps.???

Scorpions and tarantulas in captivity have both been reported to carry debilitation infestations of nematodes... It doesn't seem to be too common of an occurrence though.

Is there anyway to treat wild caught prey from parasites? Also, will they eat frozen prey or does it have to be alive?