Cricket murderer

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I need help! I have a critter cage for my crickets, with the black tubes for hiding. I feed them Flukers Orange cubes and the Cricket Quencher for hydration. I also give them fruit like apple slices, grapes, etc. But they keep dying. At first they were outside so I thought they were too hot. I moved them into my laundry room under the sink for darkness. What am I doing wrong??
 

kmc4392

Hatchling Member
Depending on how many you're putting in the cricket container that can have an effect on how long the Crickets live. Personally I would ignore what the stores say. They sell a small container and say "it can hold up to 30 crickets", but honestly that container is very small and when crickets get over crowded they get stressed and tend to either fight or eat each other. Another factor could be the condition of the crickets when they're at the petstore. Every time I got crickets from the petstore at least 20-30 would die. I recently decided to try out bulk crickets and bought 1000 about a couple weeks ago. I would have to say that I've only had to clean out 20-30 dead ones, and that's out of a 1000! I also have them in a large tote with plenty of air flow and hiding spots for the crickets to get away from each other. I read somewhere that when they're confined to small places they get stressed and can die. Also if one dies from a sickness, the others will eat that one and get sick themselves.

I'm not an expert by any means and I hope a more seasoned poster gives some input too. Just wanted to let you know what I've learned :] Hope this helps! :blob8:
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
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In addition to the previous post (I agree with it), I've found that the orange cubes are OK for just very short term care. For longer term, I've found it better to offer crickets vegetable scraps which provide hydration and gutload without as much dieoff (from what I've seen). I think something in the orange cubes causes them to die when they try to molt. I kept 1000 crickets in a 20g tank with a screen top which is probably similar in size to the large rubbermaid tote described. I used stacked carboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towels to house them.
 

RoKa

Member
CooperDragon":w5lrvrjx said:
In addition to the previous post (I agree with it), I've found that the orange cubes are OK for just very short term care. For longer term, I've found it better to offer crickets vegetable scraps which provide hydration and gutload without as much dieoff (from what I've seen). I think something in the orange cubes causes them to die when they try to molt. I kept 1000 crickets in a 20g tank with a screen top which is probably similar in size to the large rubbermaid tote described. I used stacked carboard tubes from toilet paper and paper towels to house them.
I read somewhere that too much calcium in the cricket food makes their shell too hard so they can't shed and die from it. I had a lot of crickets die on me quickly and after I read that I sort of switched to scraps and dragon pellets (Beardie didn't eat his, so might as well use them on feeders right? Give them some fruit flavoring! :lol: )

Crickets can die for several reasons. Not enough water, not enough space (the more egg crates you stack for them to hide in the better), too much calcium, ...
Heat doesn't seem to be a problem. I have some crickets on the porch left (Beardie doesn't eat them anymore...), they grew to adult size and survived at summer temps without care (aside from the occasional water gel and pellets, but I'm honestly just waiting for them to die off :oops: ), they've never been in direct sun though.

I've also noticed the crickets from Pet stores don't do so well (the expensive ones for 10+ cents each), we got 100 one time cause our bulk delivery was late and almost half of them died within the first 1-2 days.
 
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