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
), 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.