Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I did find a useful way to keep crickets now.
I bought one of those Armstrong crickets poly bins at the show.
It does make my life easier and I can clean the cricket bin daily with little effort.
You don't use any substrate and the sides are rough so the crickets climb the sides and you use a small brush and scooper and sweep the bottom clean every day.
You also pick up dead crickets when you sweep.
It really works well. The sides are smooth near the top and the crickets can't climb all the way up to jump out.
I have lost very few crickets this way. I used to have tons die and I am keeping about 2000 in this bin at a time with little die off.
I also made a second bin myself for smaller crickets.
I got a tall plastic rubbermaid type bin with smooth sides and I got very rough sandpaper and sanded the sides about 3/4 of the way up. Then I use the same mini brush and scooper that came with the Armstrong bin to clean that one. Since I clean them almost daily it has helped with odoer tremendously.
You can see the bin on the Armstrong website.

Sonia,

Could you give us the link to the wesite???
Thanks bunches,
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www.armstrongcrickets.com
Click on cricket displays for the bin

I made my own little cricket bin using one of those sterilite drawer towers they sell at target. I drilled at the corners and cut out rectangles using a scroll saw and hot glued in some aluminum screen. I painted bug stop and vaseline to keep the bugs from crawling out. The two top drawers have the piece cut out of the back of the drawer so that you cant see it and the bottom drawers have both front and back cut out. The top drawer is used for silkworms, the second drawer holds superworms, the third drawer has medium crickets, and the bottom holds small crickets. Its pretty easy to clean, I just use one of those plastic putty knifes to scrap all the waste towards the center and then scoop it out. I put pics up on my website if you want to see. I would have posted them here but Im tired of having to delete pics to put new ones up
Cricket Bin Pics

I have often thoguht of setting something like that up (I have one of those drawer sets and everytime I look at it I think "hmmm...great for storing feeders!"

yours looks great! my questions are; what about ventilation (esp. crix) and does the bug stop need to be repllied often? I assume it works well? I am thinking of getting it for mt roaches.

thanks,
lelle
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0.1 veiled - Luna
0.2 green anoles Jaida & no name
0.1 brown anole - Jamaica
0.2 house geckos - Gaia & no name

ventilation is provided by the screens installed on the sides, they also get alittle bit from the top of the drawer since its not an air tight design. The bug stop is supposed to last up to six months and then you need to reapply, Im thinking of just switching to vaseline though, takes much less time to apply. For roaches I bought one of those huge sterilite bins and cut out the sides and installed aluminum screen. I'll post a link to a website that has step by step instructions. I can also post a pic of mine on my website later if youd like to see. Let me know if youve got anymore questions and I hope this gave you some ideas
roach bin instructions