# very annoyed... banded and silent crickets



## moonstruck (Aug 10, 2008)

could somebody please post a photograph of a silent cricket, and a photograph of a banded cricket? medium and adult would be useful, as i'm so confused now!

which is it that has wings as an adult?

I bought alot of adult silent crickets from a livefood company for over cristmas, as far as i knew they were supposed to be larger than banded crickets, and less likely to die of cold. 
They turned up today, most of them are dead, they are NOT adult, they are smaller than the medium banded crickets i get from the shop (average about 12-15mm, one big one was 22mm, supposed to all be 25-30mm), and they look EXACTLY the same as the banded crickets i'd been buying from a different company, who i've also had problems over size with.

One of the companies has banded and silent mixed up, and I don't know which is really which, could someone please help me. I'm furious, this order cost nearly £200, and i now have ALOT of medium crickets.

I haven't even checked the rest of the bags yet... I'm supposed to have a few thousand medium black, few thousand s/m silent and a few thousand small silent.... grrrr

I usually buy banded, I payed the extra for silent expecting them to be alive and larger than the banded... they're tiny, my beardies will laugh at them.


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## Tehanu (Nov 12, 2006)

Possibly you were sent "premiums". I've had a spot of trouble with this for a while. 

A real "silent" or Jamaican field cricket, _Gryllus assimilis_;









Then you've got Tropical house crickets (bandeds), _Gryllodes sigillatus_;










Somewhere in between appearancewise you have European house crickets, _Acheta domestica_;









The _A. domestica_ are a backup for when commercials run out of bandeds, they should withstand cold, humidity and high density fairly well. 

The simplest answer if they're meant to last over christmas is to keep some at 30C to grow them up faster and keep the others at around 25C and they'll all come through over the next few weeks 

Was the company L.D. by any chance? I can't wait to see what arrives in our bulk up delivery for Christmas tomorrow at work... :lol2:


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## moonstruck (Aug 10, 2008)

i used to buy from LD... i kept buying large crickets and getting sent ones that weren't even medium, hence i changed to LW.

I am 100% definate that THESE ARE BANDED (tropical house) CRICKETS i'm going to massvely complain.... the aren't even adult banded :devil:

i changed to this company because of size problems, and because i wanted silent brown crickets, all of the ones they've sent me are bandeds, the small, small/medium and adult.

Tha black crickets, mealworms, locusts are brilliant, but their "silent crickets" and banded crickets.

and the small/medium are smaller than the small :devil: furious!

thank you for the pictures


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## malthereplover (Aug 22, 2008)

Stick em' in a warm place, usually brings em back, when we get a delivery loads on there back and freezing cold, put em close to a radiator, they should leap back pretty quickly


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## moonstruck (Aug 10, 2008)

thank you, i'll go do that!

it's more the fact they sent me medium banded crickets instead of adult silent crickets :devil: i could have got twice as many medium banded crickets for the price i payed for those. they wouldnt be half dead if they'd been silent crickets :bash:

annoying thing is, the rest of the order, aside from the silent crickets, is perfect


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## Blaptica (Jun 26, 2008)

I would recommend (as do the livefood companies who hacve researched this) to warm up chilled crickets slowly. 

Banded crickets often are called tropical house crickets, the tropical bit is accurate, they are the least tolerant or low temp of all the crickets. They also are very different as feeders compared to silents/quiets. Banded cricket are much smaller very "bouncey" and very keen to hide away during the day. I would only use them for small nocturnal geckos personally.

They are much cheaper/easier for the livefood companies to breed than the larger species which is why they are so popular with them !!


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## hungovermatt (Jul 29, 2008)

just so as i know, who are LD and LW?

I never buy that much bulk, but i've never had a problem with up to 2 bags a week from Livefood UK Crickets Locusts Mealworms Reptile supplies mail order


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