Milkweed Bugs
Milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus)
The animals used as feeding critters are a labratory strain, feeding on sunflower kernels and wheatgrass.The wild but is living in North America and feeds on the seeds of the poisonous milkweed. Newhatched bugs are 1mm and bright orange. Ater 5 weeks and 5 metamorphoses they are adult and 13mm long. These buhs are very beutiful and seems to work like a replacement for pinhead crickets. The frogs seems to prefer the younger bugs and the adults are only eaten by a few animals. Due to Flemming Andersen (Denmark) the young mikweed bugs taste sweet and the adults taste more spict coriander bug, since he did taste them with I'm not so interested in.
Use boxes of 20x20x30 and a timecycle: 14h light / 10h dark. Add cotton wool for egg laying and feed with sunflower kernels. All stages can be kept together but collect cotton wool at regular intervals and move to a smaller box to make sure that you have access to the right size bug. Up to a thousand individuals can be kept together in this kind of box.