Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I just got my gecko today! I'm so happy and it is wonderful and I'll post some pictures soon.

However, along with my first gecko comes my first crickets, and that situation got a little out of hand! They gave me the crickets in a plastic bag that had an egg carton type thing in it (so that they wouldn't fight, she told me) But then I had a very difficult time transferring them from that bag with the egg carton into the container that I'd bought for them. A couple of them jumped away in the process (but I hunted them down and got them put away) - It just seemed overly tough. Maybe its because I'm new at it. Does anybody have any suggestions about how to handle crickets and transfer them from one spot to another without them running away?

At present I have them in the container with a carrot that most of them are munching on and a moist paper towel for moisture. I'm not yet sure on how I'm going to get them from the container into a plastic bag to shake-and-bake them before I put them in the tank. I suppose I'll just take the lid off and try to dump some out and hope for the best.

Any ideas or suggestions?

I always have a few crunched up papers or some egg carton in my cricket house. I just pick them off of the paper/egg carton individually and throw them in the plastic bag. They're kind of a pain in the butt, but for the small amount of crickets I need, it seems the best way. I'm sure people who feed hundreds of crickets a day probably deal with the situation differently.

I'm interested to see if anybody has any better suggestions though!
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-Kristin

0.1.2 Leopard Geckos
(Monet, Kumquat, and Tamale)

This is a Kricket Keeper...
http://www.petsmart.com/media/ps/images/products/detail/large/June04/lg_5996_390bf.jpg

It works very well. There is a lockable top that keeps them in and a lid that flips up for easy "dump-in action." The easiest way to get the crickets in the keeper is to open the bag and grab a hold of the egg carton. Shake any crickets off into the bag. It helps to bang the carton on the side of the bag. while it is in the bag check for any crix that have held on. After all of them are in the bag remove the carton and simplly pinch the top of the bag, and slowly turn it upside down into the top of the flip up clear plastic lid. Once you have the bag part way inside, release the pinched top and shake them down into the bottom of the keeper. Make sure all crix go in so you don't have any escapees from the bag. Once it comes time to feed, the crickets should be in the black tubes on either side. Simply remove a tube and lightly, and I can't stress LIGHTLY enough, tap some crickets into the cage. If you tap too hard you could get dozens, depending on how many are in the keeper and/or the tube. Any other questions? Feel free to send me an email: iced_earth_goddess@hotmail.com. Take care! Good luck!
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~Laura

Rejoice, the age of the fall has begun
We'll dance as the palaces burn.
--Lamb of God, As the Palaces Burn

I absolutely *love* mine, I don't know how I went 4 years with just a critter keeper... I've noticed less die-off with the keeper as well...

Hi! You can do one of two things:
1) put a toilet paper tube in with them. Alot of the crickets will get inside of it (or you can kind of scoop them up with it) and when you are ready to transfer them to the bag simply (but quickly) place the toilet paper tube inside the bag and shake all the crickets out of it, it works like a charm.
2)You can also remove their food and water and shake the containter that they are in back and forth and fast. This will stun the crickets for a few moments and you can quickly dump them into the bag without them jumping around.

Both methods work for me, good luck!

What I've found to work well for extraction of crickets from the cricket house is to stick a toilet paper or paper towel tube in near them - some will usually crawl up into it, and then it's easy to tap them out of there into your bag or shaker or whatever to coat them in vitamin powder. The trick is to get them to crawl up the inside of the tube, not the outside - obviously they're a lot easier to control when they're on the inside...

As far as feeding/keeping the crickets, I've found they do pretty well on this stuff I got called cricket yummies - it's a balanced diet for them, and a good gut load for the geckos. Basically as long as the crickets have some stuff (egg carton, whatever, as long as it starts out clean) to crawl around on, and something good to eat, they won't eat each other too much.
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0.1 Albino Leopard Gecko - Tigger
0.1 Crested Gecko - Pooh-Bear

We have a "critter keeper" a smaller version of the cricket keepers without the tubes and tend to use the papertowel/ TP roll method as well. When we have dealt with small and medium crickets we had a lot of escapees. First I wrapped the container in netting which worked ok for a while, and then we got a hold of an old 10gal with a cover. We leave the critter keeper inside the 10gal all the time, that way if there are any escapes during the unloading or the feeding sessions or if they are just being Houdini's they only make it as far as the inside of the 10gal. We call them "volunteers" for the next feeding. Right now we have a keeper of mediums for the crested and a smaller keeper of larges for the leo, both in the 10 gal.

As far as cricket food, we initially bought some complete orange cube diet, until I had a hard time finding fresh stuff. I bought the Cricket Yummies and what a difference in our geckos! They really seemed to like the difference and even their poo changed to a more normal schedule and better quality too... seems the orange stuff, while supposedly nutritious, contained alot of fillers and fiber. Good luck, you will get the hang of crickets after a while, and they really are the best for the gecko.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock