Wild Food for Leos

[NennaMeerkat]

So I am strapped for cash for about 2 weeks and ended up feeding the rest of my crickets to my leos tonight. Outside however there are a somewhat abundance of grasshoppers. They are generally about the size of the large crickets I buy and are green or brown colored. If I removed the back legs of these guys (they can hop like you wouldn't believe) would they be safe to feed my leos for a bit until I can get crickets again?

There is no pestisides in my area being sprayed or anything else I would think harmful on them. Heck what if I washed them in water gently before feeding? Just would like some input overall.

[stephanbakir]

Grasshoppers are notorious for intestinal parasites from what I've heard.

[Dehlida]

Should honestly be fine. Rarely will anything happen.

[marionsclan]

Grasshoppers are notorious for intestinal parasites from what I've heard.

Would freezing them kill off the parasites?

[stephanbakir]

I would assume so.

[NennaMeerkat]

Yeah but most leos prefer live food to dead. I don't think either of my girls respond to even dead food being shaken in front of them with tongs.

[TeaNinja]

i used to wave crickets in front of my girl all the time and she'd snack them out of my hand, but they were definitely alive.

[NennaMeerkat]

Mine run from the tongs and cricket. I feed both in a seperate container these days to make sure they both get plenty to eat (usually about 6-7 crickets every other day for Bell and 3-5 crickets every other day for Eclipse...Eclipse just eats less always) and I have tried dead and live ones in tongs wiggling. Its automatic fleeing every time.

So live is really my only option.