Reptile & Amphibian Forums

can someone help i raise my own crickets some times in my bins there might be 30000 crickets .when they reach the med. size they all start moving real slow no more hopping.then in a day or so they just die and turn black.is there a med. or something i could use thankyou for any help bill

>>can someone help i raise my own crickets some times in my bins there might be 30000 crickets .when they reach the med. size they all start moving real slow no more hopping.then in a day or so they just die and turn black.is there a med. or something i could use thankyou for any help bill

Sounds like they may be harboring some parasite that is killing them from the inside out. Your best bet...throw all your stock out, totally disinfect your containers and start over with stock from a different supply source than where you got the others from.
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Wyvern

thanks for the info.are there any thing else i can do i am trying to get lots of them so i can sell them. i sell about 10000 a week but every time i start going good this pops up.it seems like its just the med.they stop moving or move real slow then die and turn black.how do the big guy handle this stuff? thanks again bill

>>thanks for the info.are there any thing else i can do i am trying to get lots of them so i can sell them. i sell about 10000 a week but every time i start going good this pops up.it seems like its just the med.they stop moving or move real slow then die and turn black.how do the big guy handle this stuff? thanks again bill

Temperature and diet and the actual setup could all possibly be playing a factor with the die-offs.

Too hot and not enough ventilation could lead to bacterial buildups and stress possibly leading to death. Too much moisture in such a situation could cause a lot of problems too such as with mold and fungus.

Too much calcium in a diet seems to have an effect on crickets or at least it seemed that way to me. I used to breed my own mealies and always added powdered milk to their meal but when using that same mixture with crickets I tried to breed got a large die-off. I pretty much stopped using my home-made mix for the crickets and just buy bulk jars of cricket food from Timberline Fisheries.

Also, not having enough egg crates for all the crickets to hang out on can cause enough stress to kill.
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Wyvern

thanks i will try anything at this point bill