I Have An Emergency People!

[roguekiller23231]

I have just discovered that a lot of the crickets i have been feeding my chameleons are dead! and there all gooey and covered in maggots!

would the maggots if eaten by my 2 chameleons effect them or would they get digested??

there are no signs as yet of anythink wrong, they arnt showing any sighns of discomfort and are there bright coloured selves. there poo is the same and has no signs of anythink that shouldnt be in there.

i am in birmingham and thinking of taking them to a vet just in case, can anyone reccomend a good reptile vet??

and what should i do with the rest of the crickets, would they be fine to be set free? or should i incinerate them along with the rest? lol

and what should i use to clean out the cricket boxes so this dosnt get transfered to the new batch coming tommorow?? would diluted bleach be ok??

thanks!

 

[CammieNLeno]

As far as looking for vets, there is a thread stickied at the top of this health section - I would paste the link, but for some reason wont let me? Go check it out, has alot of resources for getting vet help.

I dont think that a vet trip is warranted for you guy, id just toss out all the old crickets, disinfect your container, and start again. Do you have alot of standing water in your cricket container that they are drowning in?

 

[roguekiller23231]

thats the strange thing, it's completely dry, all that is in there is some crickets, tubes, and a food and water tray. the water is in a jelly kind of stuff.

 

[mika]

I have an open rubbermaid tub (no top) & I cut out the ends of it and placed screens but I noticed the inside would still get moist if I turned on the air conditioner in the room or if I placed wet veggies and stuff inside.

Do you turn on your humidifier or air conditioner maybe?

Yeah, i wouldn't use those old crickets. Better safe than sorry.

How old are the crickets? Are they at the end of their life cycle or are they young? I usually end up with a lot of dead crickets when I buy 4 wk old ones but not when i get 3 wk old ones.

I wash mine with soap and water. Last time i tried the bleach i guess i didnt rinse it out good enough & it still had that bleach smell so my crickets kept on dying.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

You may have a problem with ventilation in your cricket container.

Yes, bleach at 1 part per 10 parts water is OK.

 

[studiocham]

would the maggots if eaten by my 2 chameleons effect them or would they get digested??

Maggots are tough. They cannot be digested unless their bodies are perforated. Some critter keepers puncture them and use them as feeders for their high nutritional value. mmmm Punctured maggots.

 

[Geckoxp]

I have had that happen a couple times when I was first starting out. I kept my crickets in plastic containers with a small screen top without any heat and lighting...with the moisture during the summer and no lighting or heat to keep things dry I would run into your same issue.

If you do the following you should have no issues...or at least I haven't had any problems.

1. Make sure there is enough space for all your crickets. A large storage container works great!

2. Make sure you cut out a side or 2 on the sides for ventalation. This helps move the air around so no moisture does not build up.

3. Cut out a screen top for the container and place a small heat lamp on it. Usually a 40w bulb or lower works great! 75w usually is way to high. The heat helps dry out the container rather well.

4. make sure that the room your keeping them in isn't locked up tight as well. Again this helps keep things drier with air flow.

5. Change the food and water regulary...im as lazy as it gets so I do this once a week if not sooner....it all depends on how many cricks I am keeping in the container. In fact I did this last night with the 2 sizes I keep.


With those steps you should be good to go. You probably already knew all of that but in your case keep the cricks that look ok and remove and get rid of the rest.

 

[roguekiller23231]

i've taken out nearly all the good ones, and going to keep them for a while befor there eater, luckly i got plenty of other stuff to feed the chams for now.

it looks like a war scene in there, dead bodies all over the place and some still twitching. lol think i'll just put the crickets out of there misery quickly and just burn the remainder.

**thanks everyone!!**

 

[chamlover]

Maybe you were just the witness of a cricket war. lol. I have recently lost numerous crickets for some unknown reason but the supplier replaced them at no cost. Same container, same food, etc. Might be just a bad batch of crickets. If you use a bleach solution i would rinse it a few times just to make sure. Crickets are really sensitive to smell. Also let it dry thoroughtly before replacing crickets. Did you cut open the maggots and feed it to them? How gross is that?

Debby

 

[Kat77]

Just out of curiousity, how did you not notice that the crickets you're feeding your chameleon are dead and slimy? You're supposed to look in on them pretty often!

 

[roguekiller23231]

Just out of curiousity, how did you not notice that the crickets you're feeding your chameleon are dead and slimy? You're supposed to look in on them pretty often!

They live in a tubeing thing, and most of them were in there and dead, havnt a clue how it happend. but i noticed when some of them came out of the tube and were just twitching on there backs, and then noticed inside some of the other tubes a lot of them were just stuck to the sides!.

think i'll have to find a better system for keeping the crickets healthy.

plus i dont use them all the time to feed the chameleons, i tend to use mealworms and some other things for them.

but think they were watching lord of the rings or somethink, looks like a war zone. lol. must have had a great battle during the night while i was asleep.

 

[Kat77]

Well thats good. I would definitely look into a healthier way to keep them, since feeding a cham bad/unhealthy crickets isn't very worthwhile. Good luck!
Have you tried feeding the crickets fruit and veggies and mustard greens and things? That way they get lots of vitamins and nutrients and are nice and nutritious for your chameleon!

 

[roguekiller23231]

i got some gut loading stuff and they get a few diffrent things in there to eat, but i think i'll be putting more stuff in there. hopefully i can use somethink without having the risk of them escapeing, everyone in the house would freakout if any escaped. lol

once i come downstairs and people were standing on chairs, i thought there was a mouse or somethink, 'one of you crickets escaped and went under there' i was like 'huh? a cricket!' lol

 

[chamlover]

You do know crickets only live about 8 weeks right? If you aren't feeding them all the time maybe they were just old and died. I don't feed my crickets anything but fresh vegies and fruit, topped with calcium or vitamins. Heatlhy crickets, healty chams. Yeah, don't let them watch Lord of the Rings. They get too excited. lol

debby

 

[Jeweledchameleons]

Crickets are open to both bacteriological as well as fungal infection.
There are some temp and humidity requirements that you should keep in mind.
Basically it sounds like you had just a plain old unsanitary container for your feeders.
and yes, it's unhealthy for your animal to eat them.

I live in a different environmental zone where things are a bit dryer
Mine do well in open large plastic tubs with egg crates and feed.
It's best to remove by hand any dead feeders as they'll infect
and kill the rest of the lot.
with every new shipment I wipe out the old container and spray
it down with lysol making sure everything is reasonably clean
before adding the new fresh crickets.

when in doubt, dry air and fruit are good solutions for any die off.
vitamins and supplements are mixed in with the dry feed/gutload
it's hard to overstate how important good food is for any pet.