crickets getting stuck....

[Pepito2011]

so i have a glass enclosure for my lil pepito till he gets a bit bigger then were gonna place him into a much larger sceen enclosure. well this glass terranium has a styrofoam slab shaped and colored like stone for the back wall. behind the wall are 2 cutout strips going downward for those animals that need heated rocks and so forth so you can hide your cords. goes in holes at top of terranium, goes down back of rock wall, out hole at floor. well i dont have any flooring in my terranium i was told to leave without being as it will be a breeding ground for bacteria. so i didnt get any, well the crickets like to crawl in hole at floor climb up back and sit on top of styro foam rock. where i am afraid lil pepito cant get or see them. and some chill behind the wall entirely, and die! I taped up the holes at the roof to prevent them from jumping out of tank but what can i put at the holes on the floor to prevent them from hiding from pepito?? please help!

 

[carol5208]

have you tried cup feeding instead of letting the crickets loose?

 

[lisa h]

I'm having the same problem, and the stupid crickets also escape. I have one little pygmy that has actually crawled into that space, and spends a lot of time near it. I worry that when babies are born in that enclosure they might crawl in there and not be able to get out, or they'll be eaten by the crickets. I'm going to remove the styrofoam and put some sort of background on the outside of the glass, just so the cords don't show.

 

[JackP308]

I eliminated that problem by flipping the background upside down cutting the hole larger so my baby girl panther can fit in and out. I placed it back in cage with hole at top with inch or so gap between. So now my girl when she cant find crickets shes knows where to find them behind the wall.Its regular hunting ground for her .

IF they're escaping the exo terras which usually has these backgrounds. I just place some black electrical tape across the top cord holes" nobody can see it at all. Cuts down on a bazillion loose crickets. I swear it takes a cricket about 1min flat to escape an exo terra cage that is not taped.

 

[Pepito2011]

escape

yea i got the holes all taped up and around the hole i cut out of the screen for the humidifier. and i have a glass cage at the moment so i dont think moving the wall forward will work but great idea! wont the crickets get out of the cup?? i dont understand they are smart little buggers. oh and all the ones that were escaping crawled into my vent and into the downstairs neighbors house, they said they have no idea where they all came from!! shhhh....

 

[kissarose]

We did the same thing after talking to our local reptile shop owners. We have a wonderful small reptile shop her in the Twin Cities, that has helped us out a lot with our questions and we have gotten to be good friends friends with the owner. She actually told us not to use those styrofoam back slabs we were having problems with our feeders actually burroughing into the slaps make big holes in it. The problem is the feeder ingests the slap and then the Cham eats the feeder, and styrofoam is not a very gut loader. She told us to buy the aquarium backgrounds and tape those up. Just another FYI don't wait to long to move your cham. We moved our Clyde into a much larger screened cage after being in a glass enclosure and he was not happy (which is weird, I know), but he would just sit in one corner of the plant, we tried everything to get him used to his new enclosure and nothing worked so we set the old one up again and tried him out back in there and he is back to his old self. Just some thoughts! Good luck!

 

[javsto]

rip off the crickets legs so that they cant move.

 

[dionysus19]

Yep lil pepito is by far the coolest name I've read here.

 

[daveo]

my favorite name is "Darth Veilder"

 

[Hoj]

i had the same prob, what i did was cut about 3 inchs off the foam so it dosent get to the top that way the crickets cant escape, also my cham figured out that they went up the back and came out the top where he was waiting....dun,dun,dun