feeding crickets to rats?

I heard that rats love to eat crickets. Are they a good source of food for them? I plan on breeding crickets and since they only live for about 6 weeks I thought maybe I could feed the left over crickets that I don't need to them, once the crickets are about a month old. How good of a diet is this? Right now I have them feeding on rodent block. If crickets were a good food source for them maybe I could switch to feeding crickets and rodent block. Anyone know about the nutrition crickets will be for the rats? Thanks for any help. :)

I think they are more like a treat, not something you want to feed them a lot of.

How often should I "treat" them with crickets? Like just occasionally (like a couple crickets for them a week or less) or like a daily treat?

i think crickets as a treat once or twice per week (one cricket each time) is all you really want to give a rat. i think maybe because of the high protein crickets have? i know jo has mentioned giving rats crickets from time to time as a treat--hopefully she can chime in here and shed a little more light on the subject. :)

Like anything that is considered a treat I just give it rarely and sporatically. I don't like the rat colony to come to expect high fat treats as that seems to set up a situation where they prefer that and will start to ignore or waste their dry mix. If you want to occasionally toss a few crickets in, I think that's fine but I do it irregularily and purely as a supplimental treat sort of thing.

I haven't tried crickets but they sure go psycho over mealworms. I give them as occasional treats for pregnant and nursing rats. High protein and fat treat.

Shouldn't pregnant and nursing females be fed a higher protein diet? Would it be best for the rats to not eat them at all? And thanks for all your replies!

I feed my rats occasional crickets and mealworms. Whenever I have extra and feel the urge. The rats go nutso over the crickets especially.
Wolfy

thanks, i think i've decided how it's going to work now. i will have just about as many breeder crickets as i do rats at a time and once they are about 4-6 weeks old i will feed them off to the rats, then i will save that many crickets from the first hatching and use them as breeders and do the same thing. that will be 1 cricket per rat every 1-5 weeks, i havent decided yet how often i will have new crickets breeding. still open for any other opinons, thanks :)