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i am having a problem with my crickets dying at night when it gets cooler. anyone proivide heat after lights out to your crickets?

dennis

I have one of those radiant heat dish things in my garage that is aimed at my "insect rack" and keeps the whole thing warm 24/7. It works great. It just shoots a beam of heat wherever it's aimed. It also makes no light (well, I guess a little). It's set on medium heat and keeps the temps at about 80-85. Easy to adjust and simple. Just keep all your insects together in one spot (like a shelf) and aim it at them. It's also good for incubating crickets eggs, which I noticed your other question, and you should mist them whenever they need it. If there's lots of ventilation, you will need to mist them everyday for sure. If they're in a covered container with only a small air vent, every other day or so. The very top layer of dirt can be dry but the rest should be moist. Keep the peat moss (or whatever you use) in a clear container and you can see how moist it is. If kept at a slightly warm temp 85-90 they hatch in about 10 days, give or take of course. Also, I think I finally figured out how to stop all the babies from dying, which I had about a 98 percent death rate when I started with crix, just get a medium sized bin (10 gallon or so) and do the vertical egg crate thing on one side, and the dirt they hatch out of on the other side. Just pile it up against the wall and let them hatch out of it. I'm doing it right now. I just mist the pile of dirt once a day (with very little ventilation) and so far they're doing great. I'm at about day 5 or 6 with this batch. Probably less than a 5-10 percent death rate so far and I've got about 1000-1500.
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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV

I lose very few crickets. I provide no heat day or night. You can either use heat tape (never have) or black or red heat lamp to give heat at night...

Dennis,

It got down to 20 degrees here last night - but our roaches and crickets are just fine this morning. We keep some in the garage with domed reflector clamp-lamps (using regular light bulbs). Both like to be kept at 85-90 degrees.

We raise our feeder's tub off the concrete floor (sit them on wood 2x4's) to help keep them warmer.

You can leave a lamp on during the day too, and just add another one for night-time when it gets colder. If you have a small ceramic heater, you can use that too (just set the temp as needed). Be careful not to have it close to anything combustible.

Hope this helps,
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