Here's a little history (or perhaps an excuse) for how and why and what this very special diet formula is all about.

It all started when my grand daughter decided she wanted a pet lizard. Of course, she got the lizard and all $300+ worth of tanks, water bowls, substrate, rocks, small lizard houses, heaters, special lights, plants, books, magazine subscriptions and one $3.00 anole.

To make a long story short, the anole is carniverous. Emerald, the anole's name, eats bugs. He eats lots of bugs. I decided that all those trips to the pet store could be avoided if only I were to raise a few of those crickets for 'Emmie'...

Here is where the plot thickens!

There is no such thing as raising a few crickets, at least not for me. So, after a few feeble attempts at raising the little devils in a couple of boxes, I built a climate controled, multi-shelved, hermetically sealed room with special lighting, heating, ventilation, and all the cricket amenities. I stocked the shelves with breeding colonies of crickets and, for a while there, life was good. Emmie the lizard fed bodaciously and often on tender young crickets.

That's when it all began to unravel.

Emmie started to get picky about his food. His skin, my grand daughter pointed out, was not up to it's usual luster, and he seemed to be loosing interest in just about everything. Visions of the lizard with little Xs where his eyes should be, tear stained grand daughter cheeks, and black ribbons on the lizard tank, provided the compelling motivation to get serious. I started reading some of those books and magazines on lizards that had been piling up around the house, and discovered that lizards actually have needs transcending the expensive equiptment! That was something of a revelation to me.

As I plowed through the various tomes, my wife, who has the patience of a saint, mentioned that she could smell the crickets and would like them all to disappear. All 250,000 or so. ...But that's an air tight room!...Grrr...

Since the crickets had become 'persona non gratus' (hey! I was tired of fighting with them too!) they became the subjects of gut loading experiments aimed at improving life for the anole and the health of the crickets. Breeding was limited substantially and I embarked on a two fold mission handed down by a higher power (my wife).

To replace the cricket smell was priority number one, and to replace the lizard food with something better, cleaner, and healthily nutritious, became priority number two. Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, chosen by me for a long list of reasons, were introduced to the cricket room, where they too became the subject of diet and breeding experimentation.

The end all is this; I discovered everything that was a pain about crickets was not a problem with roaches. The roaches don't jump out of the box, or stink, or any of that sort of thing. They don't breed themselves into a seething mass that explodes when the box is opened. How nice!

The experiments with gut loading bugs for Mr. Lizard, and nutrition for the crickets and roaches, continued successfully on all fronts. Emerald, the $3,000.00 anole, who is, with out doubt, the cause of all this, finally gave his slurp of approval to the gut loading formula and the new form of delivery (roaches).

Well, there it is, the roaches are fat and sassy, the lizard is fat and sassy, the crickets are gone, the wife is happy, and I am in the bug food and hisser breeding biz.

I blame it all on the lizard, he ain't talkin' and I'm stickin' to my story.