# Looking after crickets



## mikecoutanche (Mar 5, 2008)

I can find loads on BD’s and Vivs but don’t seem to be able to find much on crickets so here is a few silly questions to make myself look stupid!

When buying and keeping crickets for BD how do you look after them? Do they need feeding/water? 

How do you store them?

How do you prepare them for the beardie?

:blush::blush::blush::blush:


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## Triangulum (Apr 30, 2006)

If just buying them from a shop and using them as food (not breeding) then most people just leave them in their tubs that they come in. Bd's will polish them off nicely.

But if breeding, or trying to keep them for longer. I put mine in a large tank (doesnt have to be large - but im breeding) with plenty of egg crates. A dish with cottonwool and water, so the crickets dotn drown. and i use crushed up witabix for food and the odd cucumber and potatoe


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## jeepers (Feb 17, 2008)

I used a large-ish tupperware box, put quite a few small holes in the lid. 

Put one or two half egg cartons in there, complete with some veg for them to load up on, maybe even dust the veg with a supplement as well. Someone mentioned as well about putting some all bran in there for them too? 

Last batch I had I put a slightly damp scrunched up bit of kitchen roll in the corner of the box and it seemed fine for a few days but then condensation started and most of them dropped off pretty much straight after so wont be doing that again...


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## HABU (Mar 21, 2007)

*Species Introduction*: The Brown House Cricket or _Acheta domesticus_ is the recommend species. Crickets live up to 8 weeks and develop rapidly depending on temperature. A full sized adult cricket will live no longer than two weeks. Generally speaking you should purchase crickets of appropriate size for your reptiles within a two-week margin of growth.
*Housing*: A variety of different option exists from commercially purchased cricket tubs, Rubbermaid™ tubs, aquariums, or garbage cans. The container has to be large enough to accommodate the cricket and allow room for waste to accumulate with out the crickets being in continual contact with it. A height of at least 18" is beneficial, as it will prevent crickets from jumping out while cleaning, etc. Plastic boxing tape, applied to the upper 1/3 of this container, will prevent crickets from climbing up the walls as the surface is too slipper for them to grip. A tight fitting lid with plenty of ventilation is required. The plastic lid that came with the container can be modified by making a large hole and gluing small mesh screen in place. Metal screening works best as crickets can chew through the fiberglass screens over time. A variety of substrates can be used but having a bare bottom is the best choice for cleanliness reasons. Crickets should be kept warm between 75° F - 85° F. While lighting isn't required an incandescent bulb can be used to provide heat and should be on a schedule of 16 hours of light and an 8 hour night cycle. Egg crates and or paper towel tubes should be added to the enclosure. Crickets are territorial and cannibalistic. Without hiding spots the will kill and eat each other.
*Feeding*: A food bowl should be in the enclosure at all times. Crickets are omnivorous. Commercial diets exist as well as several home brew recipes. They can be fed a variety of fresh vegetables, chicken mash, grains, cat food, and meats. Vitamins and calcium should be added to the food bowls. Crickets fed a good diet will be more nutritious for the animal they are being fed to. Crickets need a constant source of water. This can be challenging as crickets can drown in small amount of standing water. Several choices exist and all work equally well. These include a damp sponge, paper towels, cotton balls, or fresh fruits. A commercial watering device is also available. The water should be dechlorinated before offering to the crickets.
*Maintenance*: Crickets are very sensitive. No fumes, chemicals, etc should be allowed to come in contact with them. The enclosure should be cleaned at least one time per week. Dead crickets, casing, and waste need to be removed. Decaying crickets produce toxins that will kill living crickets and create a fowl environment. Fresh food should be added several times a week as well as ensuring water is available. Between shipments of crickets the entire enclosure should be cleaned with hot water and possibly a mild soap/bleach solution. Again crickets are sensitive so thorough rinsing is a must.
*Handling*: Upon receiving an order of crickets they will need to be transferred into your cricket holding enclosure. This can be done several ways. A simple way is to place the box of crickets into a large trash bag. Then cut open the box and shake out the crickets and egg crates. Each egg crate should be shaken out and placed in the enclosure. Once the bag contains only crickets they can be dumped into the enclosure in a controlled manner. This process can be done outdoors to prevent escapes. Removing crickets can be done in the same manner illustrated above. A paper towel tube in the enclosure also works well for this purpose. Crickets in the tube can be shaken into a cup or other container. These crickets should be dusted with calcium and vitamins prior to feeding reptiles. For difficult feeders crickets can be chilled to slow down their activity level. Freezing can also humanly euthanize them. Forceps feeding is achieved by holding a back leg in the forceps.


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## HABU (Mar 21, 2007)

Housing
Your first task is to set up a housing container for them. Suitable containers include glass aquariums (the 10 gallon size works well), wide-mouth glass jars, large plastic containers or 5-gallon buckets. Large garbage cans have been found successful for larger colonies. You will need an aluminum screen cover for the container. Don’t use fiberglass, as the crickets will chew through it.
Your container should be of a size to provide adequate space for your crickets to spread out comfortably. Do not overcrowd them, as overcrowding is the major cause of excessive death in crickets. They will be fine if they aren’t required to be "stacked up" in their new home. Each cricket needs to be able to sit directly on some surface rather than on another cricket.
Substrate (Bedding)
We recommend that you place no substrate in your cricket container as it becomes much more difficult to keep the crickets clean. You will find that using no substrate reduces the possibility of offensive odors considerably. However, if you wish to use a substrate, sand, wood shavings (available in most pet stores), coconut fiber (sold in pet shops as reptile bedding, or peat moss all make a suitable substrate. 
Place egg crate dividers, paper towel or toilet paper rolls or similar hiding places into the container and follow the directions for Transferring Crickets from Shipping box to their Storage Container.
Feed and Feeding 
House crickets will eat most edible foods such as stale bread, poultry mash, cornmeal, powdered dog or cat food, tropical fish flakes, pond fish pellets, rabbit chow and many other similar foods. We also have commercial cricket food packed in jars for sale, see our supplies section. 
Feeding crickets correctly is important because they require a high protein diet to keep them healthy. Without an adequate diet, they will prey upon each other. Also, if you are using them as live food for your herps, the nutrition from the crickets will be passed on to your reptiles or amphibians, thus making it extremely important to keep them healthy.
To provide a balanced diet, supplement the dry food with raw vegetable or fruit scraps such as slices of apple, banana or orange, plus greens such as lettuce or cabbage. The food should be placed in a small, shallow plastic container, periodically discarding any uneaten portions on a regular basis to insure cleanliness and freedom from mold. If desired, crickets can be "gut-loaded" with a higher protein food several days prior to their being fed to your herps, however we do not consider this a necessity.
If you would like to make your own cricket food, we recommend the following recipe. It is inexpensive and several dollars worth will last several months or more, depending on the number of crickets you are feeding. This food is used for all sizes of crickets. It is based on commercial dried cat food. In addition provide a supplement of 10 parts skim milk powder (by volume) to 1 part of a good quality calcium supplement intended for reptiles or amphibians. The cat food is shaken in this mixture until coated and then fed to the crickets. More supplement can be sprinkled onto the food as the crickets eat it. To provide a balanced diet, this food is supplemented with alfalfa pellets (commercial rabbit food) and, whenever available, raw vegetable or fruit scraps.
Do not forget to supply your crickets with water! One method is to place cotton or pieces of sponge in a shallow dish and moisten it. Make sure there is no standing water in your waterer, as small crickets can easily drown in even the smallest amount of standing water. Be sure to wash the waterer and wash or replace the sponges at least once a week (twice is better). Unwashed waterers are one of the leading causes of offensive odors in your cricket house.
A much easier and more convenient method of watering crickets is too use the water gel crystals. Crickets can not drown in them and it solves the problem of having to replace cotton or wash sponges using the method mentioned above. 
We do sell both cricket food and cricket water gel in jars. See our supplies section.
Crickets are clean insects and must be kept clean and dry. Your success with them will be reflected by the care you have given them. We suggest that once a week you scrape or sweep your container/s. regardless of the number of crickets in your container/s, you will find it simple to clean around them.
Temperature
Crickets thrive at temperatures higher than those in the average house. They prefer 80-90 degrees F. (26-32 degrees C.), however they seem to live longer at somewhat lower temperatures - something to keep in mind if you want to keep an excess of crickets alive as long as possible.
Smaller crickets require warmer temperatures. Pinheads do best at 88-92 degrees F., with 1/2 to 3/4 inch doing best at 80-92 degrees F. and adults at 75-85 degrees F.
Cricket nymphs (smaller than pinheads) held at 80 degrees F. require up to 60-65 days to mature, while those kept at 90 degrees F. require only 30-35 days to complete their development. 
A "Handy" Cricket Feeder
A square 1-gallon milk or water jug works well as a cricket collector and feeder. Cut the bottom from the jug, keeping the screw or snap-on top. You now have a large funnel. Use duct tape on the inside to cover the openings into the handle, as crickets will hide there. Holding the feeder over your cricket container, remove one of the small pieces of egg crate and shake it into the feeder. Sprinkle the crickets with calcium and/or vitamin supplements as required and shake gently to coat the crickets. To feed, tip the funnel into the herp cage and gently shake.
Other Cricket Uses
Freshly killed crickets make an excellent food for many small birds such as finches, hummingbirds and warblers, all of which love them.
Just place the crickets into the freezer and they will slowly cool down, their metabolism will lower until they are asleep and they will then die from the cold. This is a very humane way of doing this.
Caution!
Crickets are very susceptible to insecticides! Avoid any type of insecticides such as sprays, "no-pest strips" or anything that might give off fumes - even if not in the same room. 
General Cricket Information
Crickets begin life as eggs, hatch into nymphs which mature into adults. When the nymphs grow too large for their exoskeletons which are made of chitin, they molt a series of 5 times. After the final molt, the wings are released and the male can then "chirp". Crickets chirp by rubbing their two upper wings together, but only the male has the special rough vein on its wing that makes the sound louder when the other wing is rubbed against it.
Male crickets grow to approximately 1 inch long and females sometimes are even larger.


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## DeanThorpe (Apr 9, 2006)

if you feed crickets to your dragons right from the tub your beardie will not have the long life it should, plus the life it does have will be one filled with health issues.

All live insect food with exception to things that come in a tub like this 








_ sorry stole that image for the sake of this post._

Must be gutloaded before feeding to your lizard.
Gutloading is basically feeding.
There are a few methods as already said but just one way which i use is basically crushed up wheatabix in the bottom of the tub with leafy veg for moisture and added nutrients.
Our livefood is gutloaded 24/7 never without food.
the contents of an insects stomach makes up MOST of its goodness and nutrition for the reptile and they empty thier guts quickly [minging little things] 
For this reason always feed withing 15-20 mins of being taken out of thier gutloading enclosure and dont leave food [insects] in with your beardie for more than half hour max... as eating a cricket that has been jumping around the viv crapping the goodness out for half hour wont be worthwhile and it wont give your animal the benefit it needs.

Whilst you can keep insects in the tubs they coem in, mealworms and morio for instance, with crickets and locusts and roaches i find a larger ventilated tub to work better, better air flow and more space means they live longer, food [wheatabix and greens] dont go mouldy as easily [or at all] and its a lot easier to keep the enviroment clean which is beneficial.

I use things similar to this







but not exact.
Inside as well as the crushed wheatabix and leafy veg i use toilet roll/kitchen towel tubes for the insects to climb and hide in, this makes it easy to get the crickets to feed to the reps too as you can just pick up a tube and gently shake out the crickets into a plastic bag [freezer bag] and then you can add the dust [calcium 4-5 times a week, multivits liek nutrabol 1-2 a week, same as to use on your dragons veg]

If you put crickets withing the bag in the fridge for ten minutes it will slow them down and make them easier to catch [the lizard and you too if they get away]

The tubs the insects are kept in will need ceaning out and the tubes, wheatabix etc replaced atleast once a week.
Add fresh wheatabix every day or 2 [obviously if it all goes..before] and fresh leafy greens daily or twice a day again not letting it run out if you can help it for reaosns mentioned before.

Egg cartons can be use dinstead of toilet roll tubes but i find tubes easier and sturdier.

If you ever see any mould in your insect tubs, clean and replace everything and let those insects feed up for a day before using them to make sure none is left [even traces] in thie rsystem, better safe than sorry.

The odd feed of insects that have run out of food wont do too much harm but in general try and make sure all insects are well gutloaded and usually dusted.

All the best.


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## mikecoutanche (Mar 5, 2008)

Thanks all that is great help.


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