How do I keep crickets so they don't escape?

jaxbeardie · Apr 17, 2017

I recently became a BD owner and I researched for months on the proper care. I feed my baby hypo leatherback BD small crickets and I keep them in a cricket keeper, the problem is that they keep escaping and I end up finding them crawling around my room. Does anyone know any good solutions to keep them from escaping. I have heard to put them in the fridge for a little while to make them less jumpy, but I don't really want to keep them in my fridge even if it is for a few minutes. I'm literally getting paranoid about having crickets crawling and jumping around my room.

PLEASE HELP! :shock:

CooperDragon · Apr 18, 2017

Are they escaping from their enclosure or are they escaping when you bring them out to feed them?

I kept mine in a glass tank with a mesh top that worked well. They lived in paper towel and toilet paper tubes which made it easy to shake them into a small cup with calcium supplement and feed them from the cup a few at a time.

Ancline · Apr 18, 2017

I keep crickets and dubia roaches in those plastic icecream tote containers. You kniw the giant gallon containers of cheap birthday icecream. Maybe find a large peice of tubaware from the dollar store. Then what you want to do is cut a small hole in the top and use some duck tape and tape a peice of cloth or some kind of screen to the top. The peice of cloth should be slightly larger than the hole and tape it all the way arround so that the crickets can't escape. The hole helps with ventilation so the crickets don't suffocate and the tub doesn't smell like a thousand farts when one of them dies. I don't like to keep crickets for very long, they smell so aweful. Dubia are much better feeders IMO because they can't climb up slick plastics, don't die all that easily, and don't smell bad. I've had a few escape, usually due to my own fault when trying to get them out to feed to my beardie. But they generally end up burying themselves in the carpet and dying from starvation (or maybe from eating the carpet) and then I just vacuume them up.
If they're escaping from the beardie enclosure you may have to post pictures so we can help you figure out how to plug up any holes they may be escaping through.

jaxbeardie · Apr 18, 2017

CooperDragon":2colhsr2 said:
Are they escaping from their enclosure or are they escaping when you bring them out to feed them? I kept mine in a glass tank with a mesh top that worked well. They lived in paper towel and toilet paper tubes which made it easy to shake them into a small cup with calcium supplement and feed them from the cup a few at a time.

Well, I'm not quite sure. They for sure escape when I'm feeding him but I thought they were escaping from their enclosure. I did a test and I kept the cricket keeper in a box outside to see if they would escape, and they didn't! That doesn't make sense though because each time I feed usually one escapes and I capture them and put them back in their cricket keeper, but I find others that I don't even know where they came from in my room! Currently, I'm keeping them in their cricket keeper but the cricket keeper is in a 5.5 gallon tank with a piece of fabric over the top since I don't have a mesh top. I haven't seen any escape yet but then again I've only had them in their for 2 hours

jaxbeardie · Apr 18, 2017

Ancline":oyfoc4pa said:
I keep crickets and dubia roaches in those plastic icecream tote containers. You kniw the giant gallon containers of cheap birthday icecream. Maybe find a large peice of tubaware from the dollar store. Then what you want to do is cut a small hole in the top and use some duck tape and tape a peice of cloth or some kind of screen to the top. The peice of cloth should be slightly larger than the hole and tape it all the way arround so that the crickets can't escape. The hole helps with ventilation so the crickets don't suffocate and the tub doesn't smell like a thousand farts when one of them dies. I don't like to keep crickets for very long, they smell so aweful. Dubia are much better feeders IMO because they can't climb up slick plastics, don't die all that easily, and don't smell bad. I've had a few escape, usually due to my own fault when trying to get them out to feed to my beardie. But they generally end up burying themselves in the carpet and dying from starvation (or maybe from eating the carpet) and then I just vacuume them up.
If they're escaping from the beardie enclosure you may have to post pictures so we can help you figure out how to plug up any holes they may be escaping through.

They're are absolutely no holes in my tank. Roaches scare me a little so that's why I don't have them as feeders, but once he grows a little bigger I'm probably not going to have crickets and move to worms. I'm not sure about which worms but I was thinking maybe silkworms. I already created a hopefully suitable enclosure for the crickets so hopefully they don't escape. I will keep you posted about if they escape anytime soon.

kingofnobbys · Jan 31, 2018

I boy my crickets in bulk , either come in a 4in diam mailer tube or in a in bag in a box , i dump the bulk crickets into a 30L plastic archive file box , and use a Bug Buster vacuum

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Vacuum-Spider-Catcher-with-FREE-9V-battery/252505608929?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

to suck them up and transfer into old recycled cricket tubs about 60 -80 to the tub ,

only crickets i loose are those that i loose during the transfer and sometimes when getting some crickets out to dust and use as lizard food.

1000 medium crickets go into 12 tubs which go into a box .

How do I keep crickets so they don't escape?

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