Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, I am having a cricket crisis. I read through a bunch of the posts here and I still can't figure out what I am doing wrong... why I have such a high cricket death rate (um, besides the ones the Leos eat).

I usually buy a small quantity of crix at a time because I only had one Leo and I didn't mind replenishing weekly. Now I have 4 Leos and I have been thinking about mail ordering to get a better price, but I can't seem to keep good care of 50 crickets so I am not sure I should order a batch of 500!!!

My crix are in a bucket with a towel drapped over the top so they get good ventilation. This really helped keep the odor down. I use non-medicated hen laying crumbles, dog food and oats as a kind of bedding/food source. I change that everytime I buy a new batch (at least once a week). I have this commercial gutload that is a source of water (little green gel things) that I put in their daily. I usually have a carrot or an orange slice in there too, changed daily.

I have 2-5 crickets die everyday in these conditions. I remove the corpses daily. I usually buy only 4 dozen (I know they throw a few more in too) so that is a pretty high mortality rate. At first I thought they were too cold at room temperature, so I moved them to my Leo shelf so they are more like at 85-90 degrees and I swear they are dying even faster now.

What am I doing wrong?? Conversely, I seem to be raising mealworms because my Leos won't eat them and I noticed this morning that some are morphing into beetles or something (not sure yet).

I was reading with great interest about the roaches, but I will post my questions about these separately.
thanks!

the same thing happened to me, i was feeding cereal and decided to switch to dog food. i started feeding my crickets dog food for a while and lost even more than you say you did! i switched to cereal and chic feed and i still lose some but only one every couple of days.my crickets are doing much better now! some breeders do just fine using dog food but i am not willing to risk it.hope this helps

I replace these everytime I get a new batch of crickets too.

Couple of things I found with crix. A lot (1000) is easier to keep alive than 50. Don't know why but it is true.
I have lost crix to too low of temps, rarely too high. Mine do well with 75 plus but not over 85. I keep them on a top shelf in the rising heat...not on the floor where they get a draft of cold. Mine do well with no substrate(unless I am breeding and then they get soilless potting mix to lay in) otherwise it is egg carton, tubes and other hides on a bare tub. The tub gets washed out between shipments...I have an extra to shift around clean ones. I feed baby cereal (mixed grain gerber) and they get greens once a day. And they have a dish with a scrunge in it to keep water for them.
You may waste a shipment or two even but I think you will find once you get the 'knack' you will think how easy they are.
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Sonya

Okay, I just got a fresh batch of 48 from Petco and I will not use dogfood this time to see if it makes a difference. If I order 1000, what size of container will I need? I am concerned about the odor for so many....this particular batch seems stinky and yet every thing in the container is fresh and clean from yesterday... I don't reuse the egg cartons or anything.

Also, I seemed to have purchased Jiminy Cricket with this batch. How can we keep him from singing a seranade all night long? (Did I say I hate crickets! lol)

I keep my crickets in a big blanket box w/ no substrate. I have only pp towel roles. I also feed flucker cricket feed mixed w/ flax seed and calciums. I also give them cat or dog food. I provide orange slices or mustard greens. i tryed that stuff you have(blue gel) and it killed all my crickets! I took 20 out of the box and placed them in a sweater box and feed them exactly the same only i added the gel. The next day 10 of them were dead and the ones that were alive were weak. The remaining crickets that didn't get the gel were fine. NO dead ones. I don't use the gel b/c when i opened it one day (just a week after buying it) it smelled like bleach. I threw it out and rarely loose crixs.
Hope this helped.

Rachel
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If you don't like my geckos....you won't like me!