Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have noticed that after placing crix in the cage for feeding, there becomes an accumulation of baby crickets in the cage. Any harm from this, or will they just die off?

Matt

Don't let them accumulate.....they can actually bite the lizards, especially if its a day gecko, but can even for a noctournal gecko. then can also just anoy the hell out of the geckos.....i've also noticed with mine (rhacs and uros) that if there is a ton of crickets running around they're interest in the food decreases. So i would just give them enough for them to eat in 1-2 days. If some start lasting i would take them out. And i've also noticed that crickets that have been in there for a while figure out the best place to hide and for some reason become faster and harder to catch be the lizards.....anyone else notice this? I don't know what type of gecko u have or the age, but with my baby rhacs (u could do this with day geckos, and most arboreals) is i don't use a substrate while the are little so that the crix don't hide and they can find their food and get super fat and grow quickly.

John

Thanks for the info, but I am not talking about the crickets that I put in the cage, I am talking about crickets that must have hatched in the cage or something to that effect. These crickets are VERY small, and I would never be able to get them out without dumping all of the substrate out. Since I notice this often, I do not want to change the substrate every time. Just wondering if these TINY baby crix could be a problem.

By the way, I have 2 adult tokays. One male and one female.

Matt

Hmmm. I've never had my cricks lat eggs in the cage.....I could imagine that these babies would be annoying to the tokays because they can't eat them and they may nibble on the geckos. But i am definately not 100% sure so i guess we must wait for someone who definately knows for sure.

John

I've had this happen to me and actually saw the cricket lay the eggs. I tried catching those little buggers but I had to throw most of them away when I changed the substrate. There isn't much more you can do with with them besides allowing another species live in the same tank that will eat them while avoiding the tokays. Or you can supply them with cricket food and when they do grow large enough (which can take up to 2-4 months) they will be eaten by the tokays. The only way to prevent is to only feed the tokays what they will eat while you are watching. If they don't eat a female be sure to take it out right away.

when baby crickets would hatch in my tokays cages i would put some fruit or vegetables out for the crickets to eat and the tokays would usually eat it with all the little crickets on it. what they didn't eat the larger crickets would usually eat.