Keeping crickets..........is it as bad as i think???

[DGray]

nasty

Hi Everyone,
as always thanks again for all the help.
I have decided now that I really need to start keeping crickets in the house. This is what i think, please correct me if im wrong. I have been avoiding it because they smell like crap and require more maintenance than its worth......and a tank full of crickets can be really loud at night. Please tell me its not that bad and what are some things i can do to reduce these concerns. And in your opinion, is it worth the headache?
Thanks

Yes, dead crickets smell vile. If you buy a lot, there will always be lots of dead ones. I do not like cleaning up after my friends and family, let alone some insects.

Yessss, the males chirp, and it is not the ones in the "tank", its the ones that escape that will drive you crazy. All escapees are smashed, or sprayed with an organic insecticide. They're cheap compared to the lost sleep.

Crickets suck. Give me a nice clean dubia any day.

Are they worth it? My chams love them. They're easy to gut-load and great for sneaking some medication into them. But I don't want to live with them ever again. I buy them in small lots. Then I take a vacation from the nasty things for a week or two.

 

[Elizadolots]

Killjoy, I buy about 100-150 crickets at a time from my reptile store (based on pricing it's supposed to be 45...but the kids don't count much over 10, they just dump and dump and dump until it looks like "lots" when I ask for $3 worth of medium crickets). Based on how many I feed and how long it takes to go through them....it's around 100-150.

I keep them in a small animal keeper in a cupboard in the kitchen (mine doesn't have any of those built in tubes the "cricket keeper"s have). That way, I can close the door and their sound doesn't carry far. It also contains the stench. Make sure you keep it in a cupboard that doesn't house stuff that might absorb the smell.

I tear an egg carton into individual cups, put 6 in in the keeper "open side" down...so the crickets can climb up inside. I put water crystals and dry cricket food in with them. I remove the ones to be fed a day in advance and put them in a separate container with a gutload mix of greens and orange. PM me if you want more info on that. I use long tweezers that I'd actually bought long ago for stuffing crocheted animals but are now sold as "cricket tweezers" to pick up one of the egg cups to transfer the crickets to the gutload container.

While my family teases me endlessly on my "insect pets" it's far less expensive and less time consuming than going to the store every time the animals need to be fed. (I'm sure that's behind your thoughts).

Make sure you notice the water crystals and dry food when you go get crickets. If you have a lot of crickets, you might need to refresh their supplies.

I always buy new crickets before I've exhausted my supply of crickets (just in case). When I have the new crickets I set the survivors free...you could move them to the "waiting for death with great food" gutload container.

I wash out the keeper and the dish I put the water crystals in with dish washing detergent, rinse them thoroughly, then dry them oh, so thoroughly...before putting the new crickets in.

It's not bad, really and it's oh, so much better than standing around Pet Smart 3 times a week waiting for the fish clerk to get freed up so she can go back and get crickets....

 

[SpinyFranky]

Eliza where the hell do you 150 crix for $3? (besides an online supplier... I know that)

I just got 150 at my local petco and the total was $21....

however no way in hell ill ever keep 1k at a time, I HATE crickets. But the chams love them more than Dubia (silly chams).

 

[ghettomike]

i personally recommend keeping dubia roaches over crickets for quite a few reasons. Dubias don't stink,they don't jump, they don't chirp. They are real easy to gutload, they are meatier than crix, they rarely die, they are ultra easy to take care of and best of all they breed easily so you will never have to buy them again after the initial investment which is pretty low.

 

[Monkeykungphu]

Eliza where the hell do you 150 crix for $3? (besides an online supplier... I know that)

I just got 150 at my local petco and the total was $21....

however no way in hell ill ever keep 1k at a time, I HATE crickets. But the chams love them more than Dubia (silly chams).

They run about $.11/ea at my local petsmart, comes out to $17.86 for 150 with tax... That really adds up when you have a bearded dragon that can eats about 40 every day.

Best to order them online shipped to my house. I can get a 1000 of them for the same price with shipping!

When I finally get a chameleon, I hope he's a dubia lover!

 

[Killjoy]

Thanks everyone, especially Eliza, you understood exactly what i meant......i dont want to breed just avoid the 20 mile ride evry day for crickets, of which arent being gutloaded at all. last night i put together an old ten gallon i had and have put paper rolls, food and potato skins for water. From what i hear its important to remove the dead as those are the ones that smell. and i will also use oatmeal to try to keep the smell down......

now im hearing alot of people say dubias are better to keep and feed, what do you guys/gals think of keeping them? are they much different than keeping crix??

 

[Elizadolots]

Eliza where the hell do you 150 crix for $3? (besides an online supplier... I know that)

I just got 150 at my local petco and the total was $21....

however no way in hell ill ever keep 1k at a time, I HATE crickets. But the chams love them more than Dubia (silly chams).

It's my local reptile store. Their posted prices is 15 for a dollar. However, I found quickly that if I ordered a dollar's worth, I got 15 to 20. If I ordered 2 dollar's worth, I got 30-40. If I ordered 3 dollar's worth I got a teeming mass of bugs that was impossible to count. It seems like they just don't want to take the time to count that many so keep dumping them in until it looks like "lots".

 

[Tputtwhatwhat]

the problem with this whole solution to just keep dubias vs. crickets, is that chameleons dont seem to like dubias NEARLY as much. I know that a few of the previous posts mentioned this as well.... but its just an unfortunate fact I guess?