Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had my cresties three days (Westchesterites) now and I am bugging out about the cricket situation. I really thought I was braver, in fact I never anticipated this in the least, but I cannot stand handling the crix. This entire evening (and last night, and Sunday night) has been a herpetological I Love Lucy, with me shrieking hysterically and the cat playing a much more curious and sympathetic Ricky to my Lucy. The small ones don't bother me as much as the large ones - can I just keep using small crix forever and ever, despite the fact that I'll need about 3 small to make up for one big? Is there any way to minimize the me-cricket contact? I'm mostly talking about taking them out of the big huge bug bin. I don't have any trouble getting them from a small container into the cages. It's just opening that big plastic box and they're all over the place and jumping like popcorn. Is there some way to temporarily stun them? Do they make legless crickets? I knew about the crix and the gut loading and the dusting, that stuff I don't mind at all. I just didn't think about how to get from point A to point B (A=cricket hive; B=dusting bowl).

Also, as a direct result of my incompetent bug wrangling, a very small (2" nose to base of tail) crestie ate a very large (1.5"?) cricket before I even had time to stop screaming and jumping up and down.

I know that, at least in theory, my pets and I could live a cricket free existence (with CGD), but they do seem to like to hunt bugs (unlike the overly pacifistic cat, who has been no help at all with the corraling of escapees)and I'd hate to deprive them of it because of my own phobias, especially now when they're so young and in need of bug meat. Sorry to rant, I'm just desperate for some magic cricket handling advice.

Hmm.. genetically engineered legless crickets... someone should look into it.
Perhaps someone could recommend some sort of worm? Mealworms don't work too well, I've tried. They forget to chew and throw 'em back up. If the hopping gets to you, you could always try breeding cockroaches...

I dont use to many crickets i use some but i use wax worms once a week dusted then the other times i use baby food mixed with calcium sup. adn vitamin sup. then mixed with CGD they love it, ive done this because my older crested who about 1 1/4 dosnt even consider bugs and i have to hand feed him lol hes a pain, so its nto a big deal to me to get all the food mixed.

lol i think if hes squeemish about crickets cockroaches will be worse lol

Ive seen but never tried htat canned cricket stuff and a shaking bowl ive seen em a few times dont knwo how theyd react to it but you could try

Hope i helped

Sean Jordan
-----
1 Black roughneck Monitor (Slick Rick)
3 Crested Geckos (red, neon orange, and neon orange dalmation) (Rocky is the oldest other two havnt been named yet)
1 Vieled Cham (Tony Montana)
1 Leo (Nikki)
2 Niger Uromastyx Spike and Mike

My Email

When I first started w/reptiles I hated to handle or even come close to the crickets. I use toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls for the crickets to hide in then used bar-b-q tongs to lift the rolls and shake the roll into the LARGE/TALL rubbermaid for dusting and transporting to cages. I smush the escapees. Sometimes they are too fast to catch and the last thing you need to hear in your bedroom at night is a cricket serenading a mate (this has happened and it's very annoying). Hope this helps.

I have to agree on the cockroach thing. I would rather an escaped cricket in the house (can't climb walls), than a loose roach. YUCK!

Good luck!!
Carrie

Though I don't have cresteds yet I do have a bearded dragon who loves his crickets. To feed him I just shake pieces of egg carton into a small lunch bag. Since the crickets hide in the sections of egg carton, it's pretty easy to grab one by the edge and shake it into a baggie. Then you can just close the top of the baggie and dump them into the feed dish. To dust I just add in the correct amount of multi vitamine and calcium powder before I add in the crickets. Then shake the bag once the crickets are in like you would shake and bake.

As an alternative to crickets, you could try raising silkworms..the 1 inch and smaller worms should be alright for crested geckos.

While reading your post a light bulb went off. . .

You could attach a long thin wooden dowel to a toilet paper roll (it would sort of look like a golf club or hockey stick). Put some 2" shiny tape on the dowel, close to the bottom so the crickets can’t climb up. Then just dip the "scoop" into the cricket bin and you’ve got crickets.

If the bin is always open, just leave the "scoop" in the bin. If not, you could cut the dowel so that it can be left with the crickets. That way the scoop will always be full. And with the tape you won’t have to worry about crickets on the handle.

Also, you could wrap the outside of the toilet paper roll in tape so that crickets cant hold on to the outside. This would keep the crickets inside the roll when you pull it out of the bin, thus helping to prevent escapes (crickets jumping off the outside).

This is all similar to the tong idea posted by girliegirl.

Hope this helps. Good luck!
Patrick

PS

They really aren’t that bad after you get used to them. If it's really bad I'm sure you could find a psychologist that specializes in phobia recovery. LOL

...they wont move/jump untill theyre warm again.
-----
azureus06 0.1.0 leopard geckos, 0.2.0 giant day geckos, 1.0.0 gold dust geckos, 1.1.0 stenodactylus geckos, 0.0.1 crested geckos, 1.0.0 anoles, 0.0.1 red eyed tree frogs, 0.2.0 green tree frogs, 0.1.1 golden mantella, 0.1.1 painted mantella, 2.1.0 dendrobates azureus azureus06

I don't know what to try first (although I sure won't be trying cockroaches).

Crickets and cockroaches on the same branch of the insect family tree and the only real difference is the hopping legs. If you notice, their heads look almost identical. I'm sure that makes you feel a LOT better about crickets... but most 'roaches aren't pests, they're just outside bugs going about their business just like crickets.

I keep a purpose made cricket feeder in with my Crickets, this is a simple black plastic tube about 6" long and 1" in diameter with one end open and the other end sealed with clear plastic.

As the crickets love to crawl into dark spaces several will crawl into the tube which means that when it comed to feeding I simply just remove the tube and shake it into my gecko tank.

You can also use the tube to dust the crickets before feeding, good eh!

I got mine from petco, but I'm sure you could make something up yourself pretty easily, the clear palstic at one end is useful as it means i can look through the tube to make sure there are enouth crickets inside.
-----
Stephen
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1.3.0 Tokay geckos - Ren(f), Fez, ? amd ?
1.1.3 Crested Gecko - Sméagol, Ez, and ???
http://www.pouros.co.uk/Gallery/Geckos