Why Our Feeders

Not all feeder insects are raised the same way.

At Reptile Feeder Insects, we raise our feeders with the animal that will eventually eat them in mind. That means paying attention to more than simply keeping an insect alive until it ships. We consider what our feeders eat, how they're maintained, how they're sized and how they fit into a varied reptile diet.

Because what goes into the feeder becomes part of what goes into your reptile.

What the Insect Eats Matters

A live feeder is a delivery system. Its own body provides nutrition, but so does what is still in its digestive tract when your reptile eats it.

Research estimates that gut contents can account for roughly 4–7% of an insect's live weight (Oonincx & Finke, 2021), and studies show that diet and rearing conditions can meaningfully change the nutritional composition of feeder insects.

That's why we pay attention to what goes into our colonies.

Our feeders receive species-appropriate diets supplemented with leafy greens, fresh vegetables and squash. We don't rely on potatoes as the fresh-food base of our colonies.

It's a simple philosophy: we're raising food for reptiles, so we choose our feeder foods with those reptiles in mind.

Fresh-Fed Isn't the Same as Gut-Loaded

These terms are often used interchangeably. They shouldn't be.

Fresh vegetables and greens can provide food and moisture to a feeder colony, but that does not automatically make an insect calcium gut-loaded.

Research on feeder insects shows that meaningful calcium gut-loading requires a sufficiently concentrated calcium diet. Ordinary produce alone did not correct the naturally inverse calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in the research reviewed for our nutrition program.

We think customers deserve to know the difference.

Raised and Sorted by Size

When you order a particular feeder size, that size matters.

A tiny juvenile reptile and a full-grown adult shouldn't receive the same prey simply because they eat the same species of insect. That's why we offer multiple sizes and sort our feeders before they ship.

Our size guides use familiar visual references to make choosing easier, and our feeding guides help you match feeder size to the animal you're actually feeding.

We don't just scoop a count from a mixed colony and call it close enough.

Four Feeders. Different Jobs.

We don't expect one insect to do everything.

Crickets provide an active, widely used staple feeder and natural movement that encourages hunting.

Discoid roaches offer another staple option and make it easier to build variety into an insectivore's regular rotation.

Mealworms are convenient, easy to portion and useful as part of a varied diet rather than relying on them as the sole staple.

Hornworms are soft-bodied and exceptionally high in moisture, making them particularly useful for hydration and dietary variety. Published nutritional data for commercially raised hornworms remain limited, so we don't pretend the science is more precise than it is.

The right feeder depends on the reptile, its size and the rest of its diet — which is why we provide Feeding Guides and Nutrition Guides rather than declaring one insect “best.”

Nutrition Without the Internet Myths

Feeder-insect nutrition is more complicated than the charts copied from website to website make it appear.

An insect's species, life stage, diet, gut contents and rearing conditions can all change its measured nutritional composition. Even whether an insect was fasted before laboratory analysis can materially affect the result.

That's why our Nutrition Guides distinguish between as-fed and dry-matter values, publish ranges where the research gives ranges, and tell you when reliable species-specific data simply don't exist.

We would rather show you an honest blank than fill it with a number nobody actually measured.

Calcium Still Matters

Most commonly used feeder insects naturally contain substantially more phosphorus than calcium. That's largely biological: insects don't have the mineralized skeleton that gives vertebrate prey much of its calcium.

Fresh vegetables don't magically change that, and neither does calling an insect “premium.”

Appropriate supplementation and gut-loading still matter. Our gut-loading guide explains what the research actually shows about calcium, gut-loading and dusting so you can make those decisions with better information.

Raised Here. Handled Here.

We raise our own feeders in Marion County, Florida.

That gives us control over the things that matter to us: what goes into the colonies, how the insects are maintained, how they're sorted and what leaves our operation.

We're currently shipping within Florida, keeping transit times closer to home while we build our live-shipping program carefully.

The Difference Is in the Details

There isn't one secret ingredient that makes a better feeder.

It's the accumulation of smaller decisions:

Thoughtful colony diets. Fresh greens and vegetables. Species-appropriate care. Proper sizing. Dietary variety. Honest nutritional information. Careful handling.

Those decisions happen before the box ever reaches your door.