Cricket parasites?

[Lidee]

Hi,
so, i've managed to successfully breed my own crickets, and have not had this issue before.
yesterday while i was tending to my food supply on a sunny day i noticed one of the bigger females had a strange colour. where the other crickets were jet black (head, legs, body, etc) she looked like she was covered in fine hairs… on closer inspection it turned out to be small dots, and what i presume to be eggs!
A friend of mine said its dust mites, but that sounds unlikely, they're not visible to the naked eye, and what would they be doing on a cricket… maybe some other type of mite? but i haven't seen anything crawling around.
anyone else had this problem?
should i be worried? and most importantly, should i feed such crickets to my chams?
HELP!!!
there's a few pics here

 

[jannb]

I have no idea what that could be on your cricket but I wouldn't feed it to my chams.

 

[waynek]

looks almost like it is coated in some kind of egg or fungus

 

[Lidee]

yeah… but there isn't that much moisture in their enclosure, so i doubt its fungus, plus it scrapes of pretty easily…
eggs are my bet, but i dunno what could have laid them.
and again… i'm scared to feed with them, yet they're my staple food..
and i can't even guarantee i haven't fed them before without having noticed that scrum…
next week is stool sample week seems like…

 

[Lathis]

Unfortunately, I think those are mites.

 

[Lazy Boy]

I have been seeing a few people with mite problems in feeder tubs right now. I think its the cooler weather coming and pushing them to find a nice warm humid place to thrive.

 

[Lidee]

yeah....
i guess house mites, those tiny white ones. i've talked to a few ppl here who seem to have similar problems...
a friend that works at the zoo said they've had that problem for a while, but with their mealworms. He said its not a problem for feeding tho, just a nuisance, so at least thats a huge relief!

 

[waynek]

i'll have to keep an eye on my feeders . I've never noticed that before but mites make sense .

 

[Lidee]

now i just have to find a way to get rid of mites without killing off my crickets…
any suggestions???

 

[pieter dhoop]

mix you're crickets in wheat or flour.

 

[Lidee]

really? as simple as that??? :O

 

[kinyonga]

Won't the flour clog their pores and kill them? When I had some insects that got mites I put some ladybugs in with them...but I've never tried it with crickets and don't know how safe it would be since the ladybugs are toxic to chameleons....and I'm not sure if the ladybugs would bite the crickets.

 

[Lidee]

It worked!!!
It got about 90% of the eggs off. I've moved them to a new, clean box and keep an eye out for developments...
Thank you so much for the useful advice!

 

[fluxlizard]

I've done the same thing with plain calcium powder, but the calcium will dehydrate some of the insects and kill them along with the mites, so good tip on the flour.

These mites tend to infest when too much moisture is in your insect rearing tub. For example, feeding too much fruits and veggies and letting them sit too long without removing and refreshing. At least that is what I have noticed for mine- sometimes I use too many melon rinds for example, or too often...

 

[Lidee]

I agree, the thing is i was keeping one of those florists' sponges in there coz they're really good for egg laying and cricket reproduction, but i guess i kept it abit too moist... :/
Time for new sponges, hopefully i'll manage to avoid mites in the next round...