My crickets keep dying. What am I doing wrong?

[Charms]

Hi all,

I've got one of those cricket containers that has 4 black tubes for them to climb into for darkness / hiding. The tubes slide out for easy pouring into a feeder cup.
In the container, I keep a dry paper towel with plenty of mustard greens and shaved baby carrots. I used to keep a piece of damp sponge in there too, but crickets were dying at a faster rate, so I assumed they were becoming over-hydrated.

Without the sponge, crickets seem to be dying at a slightly slower rate. I assume they're getting enough moisture from the fresh veggies I give them every other day. I only keep about 40 crickets at a time in there, so there's plenty of food and plenty of room. I transfer the crickets into a temporary container ever 3 days to clean out their main container and refresh their food. On day 2, I also sprinkle a bit of additional food in there.

I used to use Repashy Bug Burger along with the veggies, but I swear they weren't touching the stuff. Should I put it back in anyway?

Currently, I lose 2-3 crickets per day, down from 5-6 with the sponge. Some of them turn black and gooey. It's really gross. Some of them just slow down a lot and become unresponsive / twitchy, and they die within a few days.
Am I not offering the right food? What else should I try?

 

[MissSkittles]

Well, first of all, do you know what kind of crickets you’ve been getting? Generally pet stores sell the domestic variety, which will die if you look at them the wrong way. Banded crickets are much hardier, but you’ll probably need to order them on line. *look into variety packs from some of the vendors. Then whatever type of crickets you’ve you have, they need lots of air flow and to be kept as clean as possible. The gases from their own poos will kill them. While the cricket keeper is a great idea, it lacks good ventilation. I suggest getting a plastic tote bin which will seem way too big for just a few dozen crickets. Add some ventilation cut outs to the sides as well as the top. I cut big holes and then cover with aluminum screen. Put some paper towel or old newspaper on the bottom. Egg flats are perfect for them to hide in, but you can also use TP or paper towel rolls. Avoid the wet sponge…they should get all the hydration they need from their food. Provide just enough fresh food for a day or two and remove/replace every day or every other day. Keep them clean and dry and you should have better luck. Use the cricket keeper for your dubia. They’ll love hiding in the tubes.

 

[Charms]

Thanks Skittles. I wish my chameleon would eat Dubia. There are still Dubias living in his bioactive terrarium from like 3 months ago when I last tried to get him to eat them.

Am I feeding the crickets correctly? Should I give them any other foods?

 

[MissSkittles]

Yeah…I feed my crickets similarly. I get/keep usually 1,000 per lg bin. For about a year I was buying from a mom & pop pet store to do my bit to support local small business. But they had domestic crickets and no matter what I did, more than half of them would die. Every 2 weeks I was buying 1,000 crickets! It was getting to be too much so I went back to buying on line banded crickets and having no problems. I buy 1,000 every 4-6 weeks.