Happy Crickets!

[Jane Mitchell]

Does anyone have any suggestions for the care of crickets?

At the moment we have 2 sizes. Size 6's for our L Para in a cricket keeper and size 4's in a modified tupperware box for our G Rosea. They seem to be OK but they smell quite a lot and we have to clean them out regularly. We use wood pellet cat litter in the bottom (cos our cat didn't take to it!) and an egg carton, but that seems to go soft and a bit mouldy after a time. We're now trying plastic seedling trays to give them somewhere to hide.

We're also not sure about what to feed them. We've tried the gel cubes which were quite successful and we've also tried shreddies softened in water which also worked but the current batch don't seem to like it. Cucumber and other veggie stuff goes down well but tends to go mouldy very quickly in this heat.

We're not losing many of them so we can't be going too far wrong but I'd be really grateful for any suggestions.
Jane

[Mark Harrison]

Hi jane, adult crickets live approx 2 weeks thus are not great for stockpiling. But they are easy to care for...they like it warm and dry with plenty of hiding spaces (ie egg boxes) and for food i find that a staple diet of fish food and bran does the trick with the cricket gel for water. I think you will find this combats the mould. Have you thought about cockroaches? I have a colony on the go at the moment of Orange spotted roach (blaptica dubia) and they are amazing. They dont smell, cannot fly or climb smooth surfaces. When i spoke to a few people about the benefits of keeping colonies going they all said that they very rarely buy crickets anymore and save money. I also believe they have a better nutritional value than crickets and breed very easily. Hope this helps

[christopher furlong]

Hi jane,
I keep my crickets in a large container with kitchen paper cut to size on the floor and egg carton for climiing. I use 3 jam jar type lids, one for bug gel, one for veg/fruit and one for a mix of food i make myself containing bug grub, dry crushed cat biscuits, crushed bran flakes and muesli. I also keep them warm and dry. There is lots of good advice on the net and on youtube.
Hope this helps
Kind regards
Chris

[Joanna Pendleton]

Reading this post with interest as I also find my crickets die fairly quickly and of course stink the box out!

I have yet to invest in a cricket keeper, how long do they live in these? I get the medium ones, size 3 I think it is, for my juvies and Rio, although she should be on large, seems happy to eat the medium ones and just have a few more than she would of had of the large ones. She's not a big eater anyway, I hear Aphonopelma's often arent!

Now I'm thinking about roaches instead. Ive heard they sometimes burrow though, has anyone experienced this? How do you care for them and is there a specific species of roach that are best for Ts, and is it ok to use them for the juveniles too? x

[Jane Mitchell]

Thanks for the replies.

Joanna - I don't think the cricket keeper is any better than tupperware to be honest. If we're lucky, we can keep them going for 4-6 weeks. The only benefit is having the tubes which makes it easier to catch them.

Mark - The roaches sound interesting. How do you start off? I'm all for saving money and as we're catering for 2 different sizes, that may be better than buying 2 lots of crickets.

[Christopher Smallman]

If you are into roaches this might be of interest

http://www.roachcolony.co.uk/roach_guide.html

I keep my crickets in 24 litre storage boxes with a layer of 12 weetabix as substrate
I feed them on goldfish flakes more protein than tropical fish flakes and cheaper.
Housing for them are toilet roll tubes with 2 V's cut in each one for ease of access.
for water I use cucumber or cotton wool balls which are cleaned every night and soaked with fresh water then completly changed each week.
My crickets last months.

Chris.

[Joanna Pendleton]

Quick question, when you change water etc for crickets or even just get a cricket out for Ts etc, how on earth do you stop the other ones jumping out? I mean, I just lift up a corner of the lid and try to grab one, which is difficult!

Feeding the big Ts is fine, I just open the tub and let them jump into her enclosure, but the younger ones. well, I need to catch and drop there, and it's a nightmare. feeding takes so long! And I onyl have 4 spiders lol x

[Christopher Smallman]

I just pick a loo roll and bang them out into a small petpal



But if you are trying it with them in their cartons that they are bought in then yes that would be a nightmare

Chris.

[Christopher Smallman]

And this is a batch of crickets from the pet shop.



A little thirsty

Chris.

[Jane Mitchell]

Thanks Chris, that's really useful. The cotton wool is a great idea. I think we'll make some changes to our cricket setup before we decide whether to embark on the roach colony. Brilliant website BTW!

[Christopher Smallman]

Thanks Chris, that's really useful. The cotton wool is a great idea. I think we'll make some changes to our cricket setup before we decide whether to embark on the roach colony. Brilliant website BTW!

If you do use cotton wool balls you realy do have to make sure you soak them in hot water each night or you run the risk of them drinking fluids with a unhealthy dose of nasty bugs which if dont kill your crickets off will be passed onto your spiders.

Another tweek I think Im going to do is replace the weetabix with peat or coir as the crickets sometimes moult not on the loo rolls but on the weetabix and with them being moist after shedding they get stuck in the weetabix and die or get eatten by their fellow crix

Chris.

[Christopher Smallman]

Just a quick update. I did try the peat for substrate but it got mouldy mainly in my adults container as they were turffing it up laying eggs so the fish pellets would get covered and then went fluffy

So I have now replaced the peat with good old paper kitchen towel lets see how I get on with it.

Chris.

[Colin D Wilson]

I'm wondering if a fair ammount of woodlice would be able to keep the mould down if you tried the peat substrate again Chris ???