Cricket Escapees

[Rush2112]

So I moved Ego into his large enclosure yesterday. I think he feels like he won the lottery! I had him in a 16x16x30 screen cage from LLL Reptile and moved him to the 24x24x48. I didnt have too many crickets escape with the smaller cage but with the larger one, I lost about 7-9 of them this morning as soon as I put them in. They crawled to the edge of the white platform bottom and slipped through the cage bottom and into the black drain tray. I added an additional ficus for the larger enlcosure so the weight made the white bottom bow a little. I didn't have time yesterday to set up my AquaZamp and do all my hole drilling for drainage but, I'm looking for ideas on how to tighten up the perimeter of the white pvc bottom to make it more escape proof. Weather stripping was an idea. Any thoughts?
Thank you all.

 

[CarlyMK]

You could always buy a piece of screen thats a tad larger than your base and plop your cage on top of it, then cut the excess screen off from the sides. I think you'll want to keep the white platform removable so you can clean it? The water will still be able to flow over the screen that way. Crickets know all the tricks for escaping I find them on the other side of my house some days haha. Hope I helped a little!

 

[Rush2112]

Good deal thank you! I bought a roll of screen material to put over white bottom for when I drill my drain holes. So perfect! I'll try that. Maybe I'll put screen between white bottom and drain tray though for easier tray removal and cleaning

 

[CarlyMK]

That sounds like a good plan, hope it helps with the escapees!

 

[lisagr07]

ive got a cat for my escapees!!!!

 

[absolutbill]

Invest in a cricket-only dustbuster. It makes sucking up the escapees quite easy, and well as speedy and it doesn't kill them - just dump them back into their bin, or the cage, wherever they are needed I also have 2 cats who enjoy catching crickets for me, but the problem is that crickets don't like them, so instead of catching the crickets, I'm cleaning up kitty vomit...