Adventures in Crickets...lol

So, we have been buying boxes of 500 crickets (looking for a new supplier at the moment if anyone has suggestions for mail order?) and our first box was picked up by me, while my husband was out of town for a week. He likes to get new pets and then leave me with them to adjust them to the house I think....since we'd just gotten our Chomps the day before he left.

Anyway, the crickets made it to the store on a Tuesday, but I couldn't pick them up until Wednesday. No big deal, brought them home, looked at cricket cage thing and cardboard box....ummm how do I get 500 crickets out of the box without having crickets everywhere? I managed to only have 1-2 escapes which the cats took care of I think, if not these crickets are quiet and we haven't seen them anywhere since they escaped!

Chomps still had a few crickets to eat, without digging into the new ones. I waited until the next day, then looked at cricket keeper and at Chomp's tank... Next issue, how the heck do I get crickets from there to there? I am a serious chicken I guess about handling crickets. A lizzard, no biggie, 1/4" crickets, terrifying lol. Soon enough I found my excuse to not touch the crickets from the cage. They had company with them. A nice big spider sitting right by the opening to get to the crickets. If you think I'm reaching in to grab crickets or reaching in in any way shape or form past this freaky cream colored spider with a big fat body, you're crazy! Instead I drove 30 minutes into the city to buy more crickets. Yes I am a chicken I'll admit it!

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what kind of spider it was, so I started looking at pictures of them online. Only one spider looked similar. A brown recluse. Hmmm....Nope really not going there now. For the rest of the week I bought crickets at the store and fed our Chompers...When my husband got home, I let him deal with the spider (and if you're wondering he's more scared of them than me lol). He was smart though, took a lighter and stuck it in the hole, tried to burn the spider to death and instead he finally let go of the lid of the cage and fell into the crickets.

Now we didn't know this either but crickets are rather agressive little beasts...they tore the spider into pieces and we never saw it again! Bye bye mr. posionous spider..and I wasn't sorry to see it go either....I'm just glad he didn't escape when I transferred the crickets or who knows what he would have done to me or our 3 1/2 year old daughter...ack!

 

[zooeymama]

I find using tubes - like a toilet paper tube useful. Close off one end by taping paper over it. And lay it in container a little bit before you feed and some will just crawl in there- you can use a spoon to sorta push some more in. I also was faced with " what the heck? how do I get 300 tiny crickets (and a second box of medium sized of 500) out?" I lost about 30 outside trying to move them and then said heck with it and grabbed two large totes (I have like 20 of them no joke) and just dumped each size box into it's own tote. Boom done. I put some critter food containers in them and put food cubes (for crickets) and some water gel things (petsmart had flukers brand things) for now until I find something better. And voila done.