I had seen a post a while back in which someone expressed concern for their ackies (or maybe it was just a young BT or sav or something). Apparently they'd heard of crickets chewing on bearded dragons and leos and stuff like that. I think the poster was worried that run away crix would go in the monitor's burrow while it was sleeping and chew on it. Usually the incidents where crix chew on reptiles occurs because they are trying to get moisture...and sometimes because they're hungry. The hungry part is easy to solve. Just leave a piece of fruit or something in the monitor's tank, because I'm sure they'd probably check all over the cage for something else before deciding to chew on a monitor. As for being thirsty, I would assume that problem is even easier to solve if you're keeping your monitor in an appropriate setup, because then couldn't the crix just get moisture from soil in the burrows as opposed to the lizard itself? It just seems to me that the occurances of crickets chewing on lizards tends to happen when they (the lizards) are being kept in an extremely dry environment where there is no where else for the crickets to go to to get moisture. If you notice, the animals that this happens to are usually beardies or leos, and both of those are commonly kept on sand and other dry substrates (which I'm starting to see don't really make sense for keeping any lizard alive, with possibly very few exceptions).
I'm just saying it's probably mostly at the fault of the keeper when these things happen. I used to feed my bearded dragon in a seperate container because I was always worried about that, and of course, impaction. Now I'm starting to realize that with the right husbandry, those are things you don't need to worry about. I do leave a couple pieces of greens in the cage of any of my reptiles when there are crix in with them though just as a precaution. I've noticed that when the crix do have a source of food and moisture for them in the lizard cage, they do utilize them...prior to being eaten of course.
I do think that with baby lizards I might be a little more cautious though and try to make sure i get all of the spare crix out after a little while of feeding.
By the way, if you're wondering why I've put so much thought into all of this....I'm bored as hell. If anyone has any other input, feel free.
