Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have today purchased a young Leopard Gecko, everything seems fine but i gave a question that some may think is stupid.
We have a container with about 40 crickets in it, is there any way to slow them down so we can catch them to dust before putting them in the vivarium. 2 escaped but we finaly managed to catch them and are hopping this doesn't happen to often.
any help would be great

Hey welcome to the club! I'm sure you'll have years of enjoyment out of your leo. ok, crix....lovely critters aint they?!! I understand your problem completely, but remember it is the movement of live prey that attracts our little buddies to eat them. Slowing them down is an easy task though, and can be usefull in getting reluctant feeders going, or the young inexperianced leos. Find a cooler area of your home where you can store your crix. This generally will slow their metabolism enough to limit their activity. Oviously if you live in a warmer country you may struggle to find such a spot so the best solution then is to pop them in the fridge for a max of 20 mins prior to offering them to your leo.
You will find you can handle them much more easily and limit your escapee chances. Once in the viv they rapidly warm up and resume their normal run 'n jump behaviour! You'll find with practise though in time you'll be a quick as them and probably won't need to cool them in order to catch 'em!
One more thing........really important......don't forget to dust the crix with a good quality vitamin and mineral/ calcium powder additive, at least once a week, and feed your crix a balanced calcium rich diet in order to 'gut load' them. Just like us, the saying....."you are what you eat!" is really applicable.
I hope I have helped you a little and if you need anymore advice just post it and someone or myself will try and answer any questions you may have.
Good luck....!