If you are keeping crickets to feed to a reptile, what's the best way to keep them alive for longer?

Question

I keep leopard geckos and the mortality rate of crickets is a constant annoyance. Is there any way to keep crickets alive longer without using something that will harm the geckos when they eat them?

Answer 1

Get cricket food, proper shelter, and water pillows (they'll drown in the smallest pool of water) at your local pet supply store. Don't overcrowd them, buy only a week supply at a time. Give them stuff to climb on, like an empty cut up TP tube. We had kept some alive so long they became too big for my son's anole to eat (that's when we learned not to buy too many, but maybe your gecko can eat bigger ones anyhow).

Oh, and look for the cricket shelter with tubes they climb in that you can remove to tap some into the lizard habitat, it makes it easier to prevent escapees! Read up on geckos to see what else they can eat, mix up the diet some with mealworms or something, variety is healthy for everyone.

Answer 2

I know what you mean about mortality! You're always going to have some, because crickets are cannabalistic. When I started breeding my own (for small salamanders and mantellas) I learned a few things, though.

1) You need to give them space. Cut sections of cardboard tubes (paper towel tubes, toilet paper tubes, wrapping paper tubes, etc.) or the cardboard egg carton stuff and layer these in whatever you're keeping the crickets in. They'll spread out more in your container and the tubes are an easy way to get the crickets out - shake the tube into a ziploc bag (and you can dust them with calcium & vitamin supplement at the same time).

2) You need to give them warmth.

3) You need a good cricket food. The orange cubes are great for gutloading calcium, but it doesn't have the nutrients needed to keep the crickets alive for more than a few days. I rotate feedings of dry cat food, a grain (crushed creal flakes) and veggies & hard fruit (potato, carrot, squash, beans, apples, etc.). It gives variety to the animals I feed the crickets to.

4) You need to give them water. The gel stuff dries up too fast, and they eat sponges. The best thing I came across was on a website I found when I was looking for info on cricket breeding. It's cheap and easy. Here's the site: http://skylab.org/~chugga/cricket/

It doesn't hurt to check the container for grain beetle larvae and mites every now and then and clean it. These critters come with the crickets and/or are attracted to the cricket's food.

Answer 3

Use a Rubbermaid container cut a hole in the lid cover the lid with metal screen don't use Fiberglas they can and will chew the Fiberglas screen and get out. Get some food dishes (dollar store) put cat or dog food in 1 or 2 dishes in the other dishes put Cricket Water it looks like jello. every other day put any kind of veggies in there. Put egg cartons in for them to hide in. The smaller the crickets the longer they will live. I buy 1000 medium Crickets and that last me about 1 month and I'm feeding a Pacman Frog, Tomato frog, Square toad, 3 Bearded Dragon and a Oscar fish

Answer 4

Keep them in a 10 gallon aquarium. You can cover with mesh if you have other pets. They sell cricket food at the pet stores and they need a SHALLOW water source. The plastic top of a Pringles can works well. You can use a sponge but I prefer the container of water. Use empty paper towel rolls as habitat enhancement. A 50 watt light bulb for heat would also help unless they are in a warm spot.

Answer 5

You probably need to change your set up- give them a lot of egg cartons/crumpled paper to hide in. They will eat each other if there are no hiding places or food. When I had my chameleon I could keep 1000 crickets in a 10 gal aquarium with this set up and only lose about 10% of them in a month (I went through 1000 a month w/ just him)
Oranges are also a good idea for water. You can throw any veggies in there and they will benefit your lizard's nutrition. Make sure you dust w/ a calcium/mineral dust before feeding- crickets have a poor calcium:phosphorous ratio.

Also, how old are your crickets? If you are buying adults, they only live 2 weeks once they get their wings and start chirping. You can buy younger and they will live longer.

Answer 6

I also have a leopard gecko and I feed turtles and a frog I put a bit of an orange slice in the little cage I keep them in I get them when they are tiny and feed them soon after they bulk up the pet store gives me the itty bitty ones and I only visit the store once every two weeks !! If you overfeed and leave a bunch in the cage they will bug~~ the heck out of the gecko!!

Answer 7

Crickets on live 2 maybe 3 months at the most. Make sure they have water, maybe on a moist paper towel, or a potato wedge in there, sliced fruit is good as well. But they just plain old don't live that long.

Answer 8

keep the crickets in a seperate tank, with a bunch of cardboard to make nooks and crannies. Sprinkle a little dry oatmeal in there, and every couple days use a spray bottle to mist the tank. Crickets don't smell too good. You might want this in your basement.
If you're lucky they will actually breed in there.

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Answer 10

Well I have one sure fire way to keep the crickets alive longer, don't feed them to the geckos.