Price comparison, what do you think?

[Jakeelias93]

So SHORTLY after buying petco crickets once and spending 20$ on 150 crickets i decided online is really the only way to go. i usually spend about 25$ shipped on 500 crickets. which is about 5c a piece if im not mistaken. i just found a local pet store that sells them for exactly that. 20 for a dollar. they also sell the following
Supers 10/1$
Hornworms 1$ a piece
mealworms 20/$
and they were out of dubias
i know the supers were a bit high, sometimes i find them cheaper than crickets, but what do you guys usually pay?

I feel like most of you have dubia colonies but other members of the household are firm about that not ever happening, plus i only have one cham. Plus breeding insects for me isn't the best, its a little bit frustrating and i don't really want to invest the time to perfect it.

 

[carol5208]

try these people. They do not list prices on line for whatever reason, but I pay $16 for 500 crickets delivered. They are on the west coast of Florida and I am on the east coast, so I don't know where you live or what the shipping would be. I have never had any arrive dead but again, we are shipping in the same state and same climate. They also do superworms. That is it, just supers and crickets. They ship nationwide.
http://www.lazyhbait.com/Home.html

 

[Seiryu]

I usually pay $14 locally for 1,000 crickets, or $20 shipped overnight for 1,000. But this is because I know the guy. At the shows, his are I think $16-17 for 1,000.

You might want to also check out Fauna Classifieds, the feeder section. There are some really good prices there.

Great Lakes Hornworm is where I go for my hornworms. Or if you have any reptile shows locally, you can usually find really good prices at those. The hornworms here at shows are $8-9 for a cup of either 15 medium or 20+ smalls.

 

[nick barta]

500 crickets for one chameleon may be too many. If the chameleon ate 10 a day, that would be 70 a week, or 7 weeks supply. If your cham is 3 months old, the cricket size will get too big for him. Crickets grow to full size in 6 weeks.

If he is larger, getting 1/2 inch crickets will result in adult crickets in 3 weeks, and then die off.

I now only have 2 chams, and I do the Petco run get $5.00 of crickets, and primarily feed Horn Worms, Super Worms, Green Banana Roaches, Dubia Roaches, and Indian Sticks.

Even if you eliminate roaches, you could buy Horn Worms and Super Worms from Great Lakes Horn Worms. The Super Worms are no real upkeep, put them in bran and water crystals or sliced vegetables 1-2 times a week. Buy the 500 count, that will last you for months without loosing many.

Nick

 

[Tay And A]

I'm going to be trying rainbow mealworms for crickets They are very reasonable on their prices! And as for Superworms find on facebook Kelso Superworms. I have cockroaches if you'd like some. $10 shipped for 10 females. I don't have any males left right now

 

[Chameleon Company]

So SHORTLY after buying petco crickets once and spending 20$ on 150 crickets i decided online is really the only way to go. i usually spend about 25$ shipped on 500 crickets. which is about 5c a piece if im not mistaken. i just found a local pet store that sells them for exactly that. 20 for a dollar. they also sell the following
Supers 10/1$
Hornworms 1$ a piece
mealworms 20/$
and they were out of dubias
i know the supers were a bit high, sometimes i find them cheaper than crickets, but what do you guys usually pay?

I feel like most of you have dubia colonies but other members of the household are firm about that not ever happening, plus i only have one cham. Plus breeding insects for me isn't the best, its a little bit frustrating and i don't really want to invest the time to perfect it.

If you wanted to stick with crickets, depending on where you are located, some of the suggestions about where to buy 500 might work for you. With one chameleon, you would want to buy small, in the hope that you could use most of them up before they outgrew your chameleon.

However, an option that I did not see listed, was bait shops. They usually sell their crickets for significantly less than pet stores, and typically have cleaner crickets as well. If there is one convenient to you, I suggest you stop in and check out what they have.

 

[xraygirl]

My old work would get about 3k crickets in at a time, and they were always plump ones. I quit the job in July and was going to get my crickets from there, but I just discovered that they aren't carrying them anymore cause they weren't making any money on them $1.33 for 50 crickets.
I've looked at crickets from petsmart and the box I picked up almost all of them were dead, so they had been sitting there for a while. My guy doesn't have an interest in anything else besides crickets, I don't think chief has ever seen a horn worm cause they are still in his cage, he avoids the meal worms in his cup but gobbles all his crickets up.

 

[Jakeelias93]

If you wanted to stick with crickets, depending on where you are located, some of the suggestions about where to buy 500 might work for you. With one chameleon, you would want to buy small, in the hope that you could use most of them up before they outgrew your chameleon.

However, an option that I did not see listed, was bait shops. They usually sell their crickets for significantly less than pet stores, and typically have cleaner crickets as well. If there is one convenient to you, I suggest you stop in and check out what they have.

I think im going to fray from the cricket direction. They just seem so inconvenient. They stink, its tedious to hand feed, they drop legs like crazy, super worms are good but im scared they will clogg my cham up. i think im going to try to feed hornworms and see how that goes. I feel like i may only need to feed him about 1 hornworm a day depending on the size. and thats another thing.. they grow so fast. and silkworms are just rediculous. same price as horns plus 50$ in chow if you want to keep them for more than 3 days.... of course i wanna keep them longer than 3 days!!!!

 

[Chameleon Company]

I think im going to fray from the cricket direction. They just seem so inconvenient. They stink, its tedious to hand feed, they drop legs like crazy, super worms are good but im scared they will clogg my cham up. i think im going to try to feed hornworms and see how that goes. I feel like i may only need to feed him about 1 hornworm a day depending on the size. and thats another thing.. they grow so fast. and silkworms are just rediculous. same price as horns plus 50$ in chow if you want to keep them for more than 3 days.... of course i wanna keep them longer than 3 days!!!!

Hornworms may be easy for you, but they are not a staple diet for a chameleon, as you are unable to give them the broad-based gutload needed. Roaches and/or crickets present you the best opportunity to gutload.

 

[pssh]

You cannot feed only soft insects (hornworms, silkies, butterworms, etc.) He needs some hard insects for roughage. I find that dubia are the easiest as they breed easily and don't stink or die off a ton. Some people buy dubia anyways and tell their family they are papaya beetles or a giant type of Rollie pollies. I don't know if you are okay with that, but it works for some people.

 

[happiness]

I just purchased 500 crickets for $15 shipped on Ebay from someone with thousands of good feedback. This will be a first time experience for me though.

On my way back from picking up my Chameleon (bought on craigslist) I ran into a petshop that sells tiny crickets (the size I need!) for .32c a dozen! Sadly this petstore is well over a 1/2 hour drive + through a $4 toll bridge.. :'( I would rather buy them as I needed them then buy a big bulk. My boyfriend would be more happier too! I suggested putting the crickets in a bin and sliding them under the bed.. He didn't like that idea! =P

 

[Jakeelias93]

I just purchased 500 crickets for $15 shipped on Ebay from someone with thousands of good feedback. This will be a first time experience for me though.

On my way back from picking up my Chameleon (bought on craigslist) I ran into a petshop that sells tiny crickets (the size I need!) for .32c a dozen! Sadly this petstore is well over a 1/2 hour drive + through a $4 toll bridge.. :'( I would rather buy them as I needed them then buy a big bulk. My boyfriend would be more happier too! I suggested putting the crickets in a bin and sliding them under the bed.. He didn't like that idea! =P

lol crickets stink so effing bad, and they **** everywhere, not to mention the chirping. I'd you had them under the bed, I'd be in awe if you lasted a week. I usually store mine in the garage

 

[JFodera]

I used to buy from a local petstore that would let me order a box of 500, like you would online, but pick it up in-store and thereby pay no shipping fees. You might want to look into that. But I have also found that buying them a couple dollars as a time can be the most cost effective way.

For example, when you walk up to your average friendly-teenage-local-petshop-employee and say, "40 crickets please," they wander on over to the egg crates and shake some hoppers into your bag. At least where I buy my crickets, employees don't pay very much attention (i.e. there's no counting involved, just eyeballing) and I walk out with upwards of 60 or 70 crickets- it's hard to tell the difference between 40 and 60 and a bag with 40 just doesn't look like very much, so they fill it more. However, if you order a bag of 200 crickets, you are much more likely to get an under filled bag: 150 can easily look like 200. There's a point of diminishing returns that hovers around $2.00. I'm not saying you should cheat your local businesses, but there are... strategies any good amateur herpetologist picks up while indulging his/her expensive hobby.

 

[happiness]

lol crickets stink so effing bad, and they **** everywhere, not to mention the chirping. I'd you had them under the bed, I'd be in awe if you lasted a week. I usually store mine in the garage

This is my first time having such a large quantity.. from the sound of it, I'll probably learn my lesson! I'm going to a petstore tomorrow to purchase a few dubia roaches to find out if my chameleon likes them. *Crosses fingers*


Speaking of prices...
I just spent $12 on 12(total) small/medium/largish dubia roaches .. and $2 for 2 hornworms x_x So much for saving. lol