How to keep Crickets

[cba040608]

I have a Panther Chameleon and a Leopard Gecko. It feels like I'm constantly visiting the store to get crickets to feed them both. I know that they die fairly soon after I get them home, if they aren't eaten. I'm wondering if anyone knows what kind of conditions I would need to keep crickets at my home so I can buy a crap load of them in one visit and keep them until those animals need to be fed.

 

[jannb]

CRICKET CARE AND KEEPING


Housing Tips:


1. House crickets in a 10-15 gallon glass aquarium with a full screen top.

2. No substrate on the tank bottom. Simply keep it clean and dry.

3. On one end of the tank, stack clean egg carton pieces. Placement should allow for gaps in between so that the crickets have room to hide.

4. Be sure to position a spot light directly above the egg cartons so that the temperatures beneath are 95-100F. Crickets are cold blooded and need to "warm up" so they desire to eat and metabolize their food properly. If not kept warm, die offs will occur quickly. Lights should be on, 24/7.

5. On the opposite end of the tank, place a clean paper plate with cricket food. Since crickets will eat "around the clock" be sure to have food available at all times. In addition to the cricket food, they will require something to drink. We like to use cut up orange slices which provide not only liquid, but added vitamin C as well. Oranges are one of their favorite foods and they will often eat the slices all the way down to the rind.

6. CLEAN the tank bottom at least every other day (daily if you have many crickets you are housing). Crickets eat and produce waste nonstop. Regular cleaning deters the opportunity for bacteria and disease.


Cleaning Tips:


1. Remove the paper plate and egg carton pieces (tapping the pieces against the tank glass to loosen any debris). Now you should just have crickets and waste on the aquarium bottom.

2. Use a wide "paint scrapper tool" to scrape everything to one end of the tank. As you are doing this, if there are any live crickets, they will run back over to the cleaned end. Use the flat edge of the scrapper (as you would a spatula) to lift out the waste and/or dead crickets that have accumulated.

3. Once the tank bottom is clean, add back clean egg carton pieces and cricket food.

4. Once every 2-4 weeks when you've fed out all your crickets, wash the tank thoroughly with antibacterial soap and water. Rinse well.

 

[Orchidartist]

Oh god my way sounds so ghetto compared to that!

 

[spatulars]

I would suggest not using a glass tank, 18 gal rubbermaids are much easier to move and clean. They need a good deal of ventilation when they are grouped in large quantities, so I cut 2 holes on each side and hot glue aluminum screen on the outside. The more surface area they have to occupy, the higher the survival rate it seems, so stack a few egg crates or layer paper towel rolls atop each other. Water crystals do wonders for hydration, which helps keep them alive longer. I offer lots of watery veggies too, like squash. I put their food on small plastic lids with a short lip. Keeping everything clean is pretty easy and it helps the survival rate as well.

Want to breed them? They need to be kept at 80 degrees to breed at the very least, I've noticed. Offer a short sandwich tupperware with moist peat moss as an egg-laying container. I read somewhere that each female cricket lays between 80 and 200 eggs. Nothing like harnessing nature and saving some money. It helps if you put a piece of screen on top of the container to prevent the males from digging up/eating the eggs. It also helps if you put the egg laying container underneath a portion of their egg crate/paper towel rolls. The more crickets you keep, the more often you should switch the egg-laying container. Outside/garage is a great place to keep the crickets (it gets nice and warm here), but don't stick them on the ground. I lost more than a hundred crickets to ants, it was a brutal massacre.

Baby pinhead crickets are so small it is incredible. When they say pinheads, they mean it. You might have to keep checking on the container (again, I put them outside) to make sure it stays moist, and you might have to look hard to see the babies at first. If your soil dries fast, keep the tupperware lid on. If it gets too wet in the container (lots of condensation), adjust the lid so it's open a crack. If you keep the egg containers nice and warm, the eggs should hatch in about a week, although my most recent batch took a long time!

Well, I can't think of anything else at the moment. The crickets alone are easy, just give them space and keep them hydrated and clean. These are just the things I've experienced and some tips that I was given when I started breeding crickets. There are many ways to do it successfully.

 

[cba040608]

Wow! Its a little more complicated to keep crickets than I thought! Thank you so much for your help

 

[tryme]

I'd say go with roaches, man crickets are anoying!

 

[dodolah]

Although I agree on the thoughts of the annoyance level of crickets, I found it extremely hard to be independent of crickets and completely substitute its role with roaches.

Some Chameleons, like my veiled, never grow accustomed to Dubia's taste.
Perhaps, panthers are more interested in it? idk if this is scientifically proven. Just my observations.

 

[jannb]

My little guy loves his crickets and once you get use to taking care of the crickets; it's really not that back. I just want to keep my crickets clean and alway good condition for my chameleon. Jann