Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Whats the best and most practical way of keeping crickets? I bought this cricket keeper thing which has removeable tubes where the crickets climb into right? The person at the shop says that all I needed to do was to remove a tube and 'tap' it on my hand and the crickets would just 'come' out. Now I was thinking to myself, how on earth was I to control the amount of crickets that come out? If I 'tap' it into the enclousure, won't all the crickets come out? I didn't try to use it for the crickets yet, but I did try one tube on an escapee cricket, as said, the cricket climbed into the textured tube, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it out! So now I'm stuck what to keep my crickets in. But I need something to control the amount of crickets I put in (cos my leo is the 'sit and wait for a cricket to walk past my hide' type)because the crickets try to hide everywhere they can. Sorry for the long post, thanks in advance

Allie

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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

My "advice"

Although I've not used the cricket keeper in question, our method is similar. We use a container much like them and the inner cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels. We like the larger tube because it is easier to see how many crickets are crawling up the tube at the time. (I believe the cricket keepers I have seen have removable ends for this purpose, but they were small and hard to see into.)

For one, you shouldn't be just dumping the crickets into the enclosure, but instead into a bag or cricket shaker to apply vitamin/ mineral dust. However, the person you spoke to is correct, the method really is tapping the tube until they lose their footing and fall out. Insects also will always run away from moving air, so you can also blow down the tube, but that isn't always as easy as just tapping/ shaking them out. If you have a larger shaker, insert the tube just slightly into the shaker and rattle it back and forth inside the rim of the shaker, that should knock them out.

Really in the end what you need is practice. It is a pain and I am still terrible at it if I have an especially "hop"y batch of crickets. I would suggest that for a few times you use a backup method of cricket containment. We have a spare aquarium sitting around, but honestly a bath tub works great. You just want an area that if you lose a cricket it can't escape too far, sounds like you already figured out how to recapture them with the tube. Just place the cricket keeper and your shaker in the tub and try to get the right amount of crickets from one place to another. Some people even do their cricket transferring in the gecko's enclosure if it is big enough... I wouldn't necessarily suggest this as it would be like you and I behind the glass as a buffet and not getting to be let in, but at least you don't have to worry about escapees. Hope this helps.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

Thanks a lot Sleepy , I have looked around and seen that 'cricket shaker' thing, it looks good , I'll see if I can get one over here in the UK . I have also purchased that 'Leopard Gecko Dust' from T-Rex, I'll give that a go too . Thanks again

Allie

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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

Allie, I am completely inhumane when it comes to my feeder crickets, so let me tell you. Oh, and for the rest of you..yes, I don't like crickets. Sue me.

I've made it common practice to grab one of the cricket's back legs to transport it to my shaker bag. More often than not, in this circumstance, that leg falls off, which is good for Mr. Gecko, because now they jump off kilter, and he compensates for such. Either that, or scooping them up with my hand/the egg cartons usually works best. I've also taken to seperating what i'm going to feed to my gecko a day or two before, and leaving them in the enclosure with no water substance. Now, you may ask why I do this awful thing, and I will tell you. When the crickets are dropped into my cage, Mr. Gecko waits patiently in his water dish. What do the crickets do? Line the edge of the dish and drink their last drinks, as my gecko quickly finishes them off.

I always here about people's geckos hating water. Mine seems to like walking through his, and he has learned about the crickets drinking (at least that's how it seems!) Maybe not, but it's fun to think about!

One thing I like to do is to put the little cricket cage into the freezer for a couple minutes just to slow them down. They're ectothermic like reptiles, so once they get chilled a little bit, then they are easily scooped up. The only problem is you have to let the crickets warm up again before you feed them out. I usually let them do that in the shaker bag, and they pick up extra mineral dust just by walking around.

Thats cool, Thanks I'll try that

Allie

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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

ok ..

we keep are 500 crickets in a 10 gallon
and 1000 in a 15 gallon or 20 works too

crickets smell but are pretty easy to care for.

have egg cartons in it .
becuase they like to climb .

we buy gutload food and the fluker's water stuff ( can buy at a store or in bulk off internet )

we also give them like collard greens.. and spray them with water ... they love it

( then we have a 40 watt red bulb on top of the cage away from the food and water .
humidty should be 40 % and the temp should be 80 degrees .

( and remember there messy we clean there tank's once a week .

this is are method of keeping cricket's

Christina

I have a rubbermaid conatainer in which i house 2000 crickets. I feed the flukers food and gutload. I leave the potate skins in as well from the place i order them from.

One thing i noticed....you have it on SAND!! VERY BAD IDEA! Sand is worst possible substrate for leos or any herp for that matter. Papertowels are best easy and always at your fingertips! Leos will get infections, and impaction form sand. Could cause irritation to eyes and many more!

Oh yea and the top i cut a hole and cut a 10g screen lid and taped it to the top so it has a big air hole and they usually don't smell that bad at all! If you also clean the dead ones out, then they don't end up killing off the good ones and won't smell bad!

I know the risks of impaction and would never put my leo in danger like that, but the sand you see him on is very very fine grade sand, and 'The Leopard Gecko Manual' by Philippe de Vosjoli says, and I quote: "There have been some reports of Leopard Geckos, mostly babies, ingesting sand and dying of Sand impaction. For this reason, many breeders recommend that babies initially be kept on paper and later, when they have reached a length of 6 inches, be swithched over to sand.At the root of this impaction is the availability of calcium. Like many other terrestrial geckos, Leopard geckos naturally ingest substrate matter as a source of calcium. Supplying a dish of calcuim carbonate and coating the insects will usually satisfy their needs and reduce the amounts of large quantites of sand being digested. The grade of sand is also a significant factor in impaction, fine sands are less likely to cause impaction then coarse ones."
Just to clear things up, I know that you are trying to help, but I assure you that I've done my homework on this, and to clarify, he is eating and defecating fine, his feaces are fine too and he is about 6 inches Thanks anyway

Allie

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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

I'm sorry but i still don't agree with it and would never put my leos at risk even for the slightest chance of impaction. Sand and any loose substrate is not good or recommended for leos. I use papertowels. Easy and safe for your herp. Ver efficient and always available!

Oh, it really isn't much use... She was really good at the beginning and asked very good questions long before she got the gecko. We told her that sand, at any age isn't 100% safe. She has defended her use of sand for reasons beyond my understanding with the one quote from the manual. (Which is really the only part of it I have a problem with, but then I've seen impaction personally, so I may be biased.) If that is the only piece of advice she's not taking of what we've all told her, well, she's still a lot better off than most. I hope that someday she will get sick of cleaning the sand and see the light, I really hope that is the reason she switches and not that the little guy gets impacted. What can you do? Just keep trying, I guess.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

Yeah Sleepy, i'm probably gonna change to paper towels when I clean him out (too much hassel tbh) Thanks again guys

Allie

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What does man love more than life,
Fear more than death or mortal strife,
What the poor have, the rich require,
And what contented men desire,
What misers spend, and spendthrifts save,
And all men carry to the grave?

Yea sleepy i know but it's ridiculious that 99 percent think it ok and then end up with dead leo and want to know why! DUh we all told you a million times! I'm just sick of it and sick of people killing leos because they think it looks cool! Sorry just really fed up with it!

No problem LeoLady, I was just trying to let you know what was up. I just don't want you getting as worked up as I used to! I get so worked up about things I read here, sometimes I think I'm going to explode... in fact there are many days I just walk back to my sleeping geckos and tell them how much I love them after posting something here. You know how some parents tell their kids there are starving kids in third world countries to get the kid to eat their veggies? Our little geckos are so scared of all the horrible things I tell them they never want to go anywhere or do anything wrong!

I love your straight forwardness, keep it up! Someone here needs to yell and I think I'm just too burnt out to do it. Please keep yelling at out newest poster, I think I'm done and I feel really guilty about it.
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0.1 Albino Leo Gecko
0.1 Crested Gecko
1.0 Dear Boyfriend
Departed: Harvey and Spock

Haha, I appreciate it! Thanks YES!! I hate it so much that some people are just so iggnorant! Drives me nuts! They think b/c they heard from 1 person that they used sand or they used this that its OK, haha completely not! I just can't believe people spend money on something and then kill it 13 tinmes over again and still have the audasity(spelling) to ask OMG i don't know what happend can someone help me!! NO dummy we tried that already! haha......Thanks have a good day! Yea i agree i will keep posting and you should to at least we know what the heck we're talking about! I have done years of research, i work personally with breeders and some private owned petstores. I mean i am not a dummy or a newbie for that matter....desn't sound like you are either! Thanks again!