Our Insect Farm
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When Gerry Marantelli set out to breed frogs he needed food, lots of it! By the early 1980’s catching insects around lights and under logs became inadequate. There were no live food suppliers in Australia, no insect farms and next to no information. From there we learnt to grow quality food for our frogs, developed and scaled up insect cultivation techniques and on request from others began selling surplus insects. From our first “at the door†sales in 1989 to local frog and lizard keepers, to our current millions of insects produced each week, we have never stopped improving.
We are now one of the biggest suppliers of live insects in Australia – we are certainly the oldest. We have grown only as we needed to – to feed the frogs and to make the funds (profits from insect sales) to cover frog conservation that the government fails to pay for. It may interest you to know that while conservation has become more important and frogs have become more endangered, the Governments of Australia spend less and less on frogs and their conservation. During the 2014-15 financial year all governments combined gave the ARC a grand total of $0.00. That means ALL our frog breeding, release and conservation work was funded only by profits from insect sales – we spent over $250,000 saving frogs in 2014-15.
Every time you shop with us you get the best and safest insects possible for your animals. Our insects are tested not just by feeding frogs but by releasing frogs. No-one else can tell you their insects produced frogs (or any other animals) fit enough to reverse extinction!
cricket-shelf
Where do you keep 8-10 million cricket eggs? On this shelf of course.
But we don’t stop there. We analyse food and try new things like sending insects through an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (yes a mouthful) to see what they are made of. I’m sure they had one on the Enterprise but this miraculous device fires and vaporises the sample through a 9,000°C plasma stream – and reads the signature electromagnetic radiation produced by each excited atom- telling us exactly what each insect is made of! We even send some frogs through to see what they have made of themselves based on the insect diet we have produced. So as you can see, we are serious scientists on a mission to save frogs, but that mission has allowed us to develop the techniques that now bring you what we believe are Australia’s highest quality and most tested insects.
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10,000 babies: more than all the humans born in Australia each week – in the palm of Steph’s hand!
Our crickets are grown under the strictest conditions – they need to be! The ARCade is growing crickets to feed some of the world’s most critically endangered species at the ARC. Our quarantine facility is protected from pests and diseases without the use of pesticides. We only use the highest-grade food possible and your insects are treated with the same care as our own – we pack your feeder insects straight from the same boxes we use to feed the endangered frogs that we breed and release on your behalf.
Our frozen insects travel better and last longer. We freeze them below -80°C, colder than the South Pole and more than sixty degrees colder than your freezer.
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Secluded and private, specially selected adults get busy making the next generation.
Shopping with us gets you the best insects available. We’ll also beat any price and when you shop at the ARCade you are supporting conservation. Do you really have any reason left to get your feeder insects elsewhere?
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A few beetles…
cricket-pitch
Cricket pitch: our home grown turf is ready to be added to baby boxes where our babies spend their first few days in the humidity crib room.
rearing-rooms
Well you could play cricket: our rearing rooms are longer than regulation cricket pitches. Can you see Bill the batsman about ¾ of the way down?
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Cricket feeding time: Brett gets serious with some carrots
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Glad its not me cutting 500kg of carrots!
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All in a night’s work: 10,000 eggs for the next generation.
staff-shower
Don’t cross the line unless you’re clean! Staff shower, disinfect and change boots to enter quarantine insect areas.
blow-fly-department
Don’t mix the flavors: the blowfly department – keeping several fly species in their own areas is harder than you think!
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Those afraid of roaches need not apply.
10 month old Ranita
10 month old Ranita helps sort the Superworms.
