Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm really getting tired of smelly crickets in my room and I was wondering if anyone has any tricks or just how you all take care of your crickets to eliminate the hassle, and if you are about to tell me to get another feeder, please explain why and how to take care of them, thanks

I agree they stink like nothing else. Yuk can't stand them... I have no ideas to help everything I tried in the almost 7 years I have had bd's haven't worked. What I am doing is switching to lobster roaches. They are from what I hear not near the smell of crickets and what I am told if you clean the tank there is really no smell at all. We will see I just placed my order. Any other ideas, I would love to here also

They're pretty easy to deal with when they're frozen.. try a few first to make sure your dragon will eat frozen/thawed crickets on their salad.

I gutload the crickets, then freeze them. I thaw out the amount that I need and put them on top of a dish of greens.

Do they really like them that way? Mine love the hunt, never really thought of frozen crickets. I'll try over the weekens, I will let ya know how they do, thanks

n/p
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Keith Ecklund II
Northeast Ohio
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1.0.0 Bearded Dragons
0.0.5 Fire Bellied Toads

If you dont like to deal with crickets why not go to pellets? Your dragon cant get parasites them like they can from crickets and pellets dont spell or make noise at night I switched over to the cricket free diet because of the parasite problem and I havent had problems so far. Well with that thawing it seems it would have more work involved then just putting the pellets with greens and spray them so they get soft. Pretty simple, Thawing you'd have to wait and wait , Well thats my 2cents.

Regards,
Joey
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In this month's Reptile Magazine there is an advertisement for mini meals worms. They are said to be nourishing and cost less than crickets. Their web site is www.minimealworms.com.

In this month's Reptile Magazine there is an advertisement for mini meals worms. They are said to be nourishing and cost less than crickets. Their web site is www.minimealworms.com.

Minimealworms have a fat content in the low 40s so unless you are ready to kill you baby beardies with Fatty Liver disease then I would suggest trying crix or roaches.
-Randy
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AlphaDragonZ
www.AlphaDragonZ.com

I would recommend silkworms. they have no smell (well except for mulberry leaves), are easy to care for. Don't make any noise, don't run away, have much better nutritional value than crickets. Are soft bodied so digest very well and also have a high water content, so are great a for hydrating. The only real drawback is they are more expensive than crickets and you have to buy the silkworm chow to feed them or have a steady supply of mulberry leaves to feed them.

clean the cricket cage at least 2 times a week. your crickets and you will be happier.
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sincerely,
Jonathan D. de Kluyver
JDDK Reptiles
Quality Reptiles and Amphibians
www.jddkreptiles.com

I have just changed over to Lobsters and so far love them. Very easy to take care of and they breed like crazy. I started with 250 for $20 and now have over 1k of them. I didn't feed from them for the first month trying to grow a colony so I feed off the last 1k crix and went to them. I have been told that they are a little small for full grown Beardies though. So maybe go to hissers. I will feed these for awhile and then go to hissers later on. Feed off my Lobsters and hope that the hissers are large enough to feed off of. Or maybe keep both going and sell my extra Lobsters.

To care for the lobsters just need a dark light so that temps stay up mist every couple days and throw in some veggis and watch them multiply.

I've been using freeze dried crickets. My beardie had no problems switching over to them. They are not all that cheap, but they are not messy, dont make a sound, and are very easy to feed, and are convienient (sp). They are made from flukers and are about 5-7 dollars. My dragon usually prefers the greens and I find about a dozen a day is about what he will eat without wasting. And they usually last about 2 weeks. I have only been able to find them at petco ($7-8.00 and on Foster and Smith (only $5.00 there) I tried the pellets and they gave my dragon very loose stools.(I've since stopped them, and Its still going on.) (He never had it before I started the pellets. They were the t-rex soft moist pellets for juvies. And advice on that would be great. Is it possibly a sign of good hydration??