Any way to cut down on cricket smell?

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Man do crickets begin to smell nasty...I ordered a 1000 small crickets and I have had them for about 2 weeks. I got an odor controller that supposedly cuts down on the smell but man do they stink! Is there any ways to cut down on the smell?
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
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Removing the dead at least every day is really all you can do besides totally cleaning the tank they live in once a week.
Crickets are smelly, that's just how it is. :(

-Brandon
 

aegillesp

Hatchling Member
I usually clean mine (when I get some extra time) once or twice a week, usually just scoop out the dead skins and the dead crickets along with the food they get everywhere and the smell gets better.
 

ReptileAddiction

Hatchling Member
I couldnt find anything that really made it smell better. Eventually I moved my crickets to the garage where ants infested it so now I no longer feed crickets. :D
 

Jayson745

Hatchling Member
If you have healthy crickets in a good set up with proper ventilation and no subrate it shouldn't be that bad. If you have lots of dead ones every day, they probably aren't set up optimally. The rotting corpses combined with to much humidity can be pretty rancid and even likely accelerate the deaths feeding a cycle of nastiness. Its hard to say without knowing your set up, but ventilation is pretty important, especially if they are over crowded.

What I've done before is take a tote, and put egg flats in it, then something to hold food (grinded up dog food works), something to hold polymer crystals, and nothing else in there but crickets. Fruit/veg scraps are not necessary if you have crystals in there, and will only attract fruit flies, and raise humidity, and mold if you forget about them for to long. Then take the lid and cut a big square out of it. Really big, where most of the lid is gone except a few inches around the edges. It can be a good idea to leave a strip across the middle for extra support. Then hot glue window screen to that. Although its not quite as pretty looking, I glue the screen to the top of the lid, not inside. If you put it to the underside of the lid, and somehow half of it comes loose, the part that comes loose is going to fall in making a bridge for them to walk out and get loose. Taking a ruff sandpaper to the lid where your going to hot glue it doesn't hurt. Oh, and dont go overboard on the crystals because they create some humidity as well.
 

ReptileAddiction

Hatchling Member
I would advise you not to use window screen because crickets can easily chew through it an you will have quite a few runaway crickets. I made that mistake. What you should use is the metal screen. It is definitely worth the extra time to find it because they cannot chew through that.
 

beachgirl5757

Member
Original Poster
I got this cricket keeper: http://www.georgiacrickets.com/Products/Mega-Keeper-Cricket-Pen__PT2290.aspx and I have a 1000 crickets in it. Its kinda hard to see how many are dead vs. alive b/c there are crickets hoping everywhere! It doesn't seem in my opinion that there has been much die off...I ordered the ultimate package that you can see with the link that comes with odor control, food, water, and calcium...So I am using their food which is ground so I am not sure why it smells so bad...
 

ReptileAddiction

Hatchling Member
I have found that it is more there feces that smell bad. You can clean out the cage but the amount of work it takes and it goes back to smelling horribly in a day it is not worth it.
 

icelore

Juvie Member
I keep approx 1000 medium/large crickets in a 10g tank and don't have much smell at all. I clean them once every 2 weeks, and get a new shipment of crickets monthly. I'm super sensitive to smell, and they don't have any smell that leaves the immediate vicinity of their cage at all. When I have my head over the tank I can smell them, but it's not over powering or terrible.

I have them on about an inch of aspen wood chips, with a few egg cartons, some veggies ("hard" veggie scraps like yellow squash, carrots and celery - they don't mold so much as dehydrate, and provide both moisture and food) and a bit of dry feed (high quality dog food and multi grain cereal). The wood chips let the feces and shed skins fall down and provide a bit of odor control, though since aspen is a hard wood it's nothing like the odor control of cedar or pine. I put the crickets I'm going to feed in the next few days in an Exo Tera cricket keeper so I have easy access at feeding time, but the bulk of them stay in the 10g for the month.

I don't have much die off at all. I'm assuming that good husbandry will prevent that as with any animal, so if yours smell really bad or are dying, maybe they are over crowded or something else is wrong with them? Also, you can look into getting some cleaner beetles to keep with them, and that cuts down the smell as well. I only have a handful of beetles and larva in with my crickets, but I think they do a really good job.
 

beachgirl5757

Member
Original Poster
where do you purchase the cleaner beetles? I don't have a problem with die off...I just feel it smells pretty bad. I posted what they are kept in a few comments above with a link to view pics.
 

icelore

Juvie Member
I got them in with the first cricket shipment I ever got and freaked out cause I didn't know what they were. I called the company (I don't remember who I ordered from the first time) and they told me what they were. They are a species of flesh eating dermistid beetle that cricket companies use. I've called each place I've ordered crickets from since then and requested a few be included in my order. I usually get a couple little centipede looking larva and 1-2 adult beetles. I feed the beetles to my beardie at the end of the month before I get my new shipment in.

I don't know where you can buy them, but I think you can order then from places that sell taxidermy supplies? Taxidermists use them to clean bones and such. I think people who raise feeder insects use them too, so they might sell some. I know I read that people use them in larger dubia colonies to keep things clean as well. I don't think they'd be too hard to find!

ETA: Looking around, most places I found sell beetles in mass, but I found a few that sold small colonies of beetles just for feeder insects. :) Here's one, but I'm sure you can find more! http://westcoastroaches.com/?article=140
 

Jayson745

Hatchling Member
ReptileAddiction":1v2yfnno said:
I would advise you not to use window screen because crickets can easily chew through it an you will have quite a few runaway crickets. I made that mistake. What you should use is the metal screen. It is definitely worth the extra time to find it because they cannot chew through that.

window screen is metal. if you get the metal kind. hehehe. I guess I could have been more specific about that, but it is a good point.

beachgirl5757":1v2yfnno said:
I got this cricket keeper: http://www.georgiacrickets.com/Products/Mega-Keeper-Cricket-Pen__PT2290.aspx and I have a 1000 crickets in it. Its kinda hard to see how many are dead vs. alive b/c there are crickets hoping everywhere! It doesn't seem in my opinion that there has been much die off...I ordered the ultimate package that you can see with the link that comes with odor control, food, water, and calcium...So I am using their food which is ground so I am not sure why it smells so bad...

Thats really not enough ventilation to keep it dry enough in there to keep the poop dry and the bacteria away (bacteria stinks and loves moisture). I used to breed crickets in a big trash can like you would put out at the road. I had huge holes in all sides and I couldn't even guess how many thousands of crickets I had in there at my high point. I used to feed them apples back then with dog food, and I would just cut the apple in half and drop both halves in. The next day there would be some core, and the skins. So there was a ton in there. It didn't even smell very bad when I took the lid off and reached to the bottom(basically putting my head in there). Overly stinky crickets typically mean more ventilation is needed.

Do you have egg flats in there? That will probably help also, soak up nasty wetness.
 

beachgirl5757

Member
Original Poster
wow a whole trash can full! I would love to have them in a trash can outside but I think its to cold here for them in NC...I do have egg crates in there. Would you recommend putting a wire screen in the lid that I currently have?
 

Jayson745

Hatchling Member
thats what I would do. I think you'll see a big difference. I know its a pain to buy something made for a purpose, then cut on it, but it'll work a lot better. Its just not a great design in my opinion.
 
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