As far as crickets go...?

[Demonica1610]

Hey everyone! So I've always used a small Cricket Keeper by Lee's for my Lil Gunns. However, a rescued adult beardie means more crickets! So I just bought a big cricket keeper. This one claims to hold 150 medium sized crickets. The small one never came with water or food dishes and I never knew or heard of feeding them. I just always bought new ones every week. Well this large cricket keeper comes with 4 little dishes for water (or "water bites") and food.

Does anyone use the water bites?! Or do you just use a sponge with water?
And what do you use for food?! Is this more of a hassle to feed them? Should I stick to buying them every week instead of feeding them? I get them cheap (75 crickets for $1.

Also, one of the stores I went to said to use oatmeal as a substrate instead of the egg crates. Opinions?!

 

[Gail]

I keep mine in a 20 gallon long tank. I use the water crystals because I have them already but they are messy with crickets. A large dish with a sponge would work better. I use a cheap coffee grinder and grind cat food for them, it has lots of protein. I also feed fresh veggies and sometimes fruit.

 

[Demonica1610]

Awesome! Thanks for the help. Never would've thought of cat food

 

[Mediabandit]

The basic concept to feeding your feeders is to feed them stuff your Beardie would normally eat. When I used crickets for Havoc I would keep them in a large Rubbermaid bin with holes drilled all around the upper edge just under the lid and also cut a hole in the lid and covered it with mesh, that way they get lots of air movement. I then kept them on egg crates and fed them the same veggies I was feeding Havoc. I did try the water crystals but preferred the sponge method. I would buy 1000 crickets at a time and clean the bin every 3 days. I had 2 exact same setups and would just transfer the crickets from the dirty one to the clean one and then clean the dirty one completely, I had very few die-offs by maintaining that routine. I do the same thing for his Superworms that he now eats instead of crickets. This is just the method I use and find I get very few problems with it.

 

[icelore]

I don't use the dishes for mine. I put dry food (whole drain bread, healthy cereal, and quality dog food) on one end, and fruits/veggies on another for a moisture source. Things like carrots and celery you can leave in there for a long time, as they aren't "wet" and don't rot. Other things like squash, apple, etc. I leave in there for a few days and then remove.

I buy crickets in bulk and keep them in a 10g tank. Every week I put a bunch in my cricket keeper and they get left over dragon salad and other good foods to gutload since they are going to be eaten soon.

Since you're getting them so cheap, I'd stick with that, but you should still feed them. Food passes out of their system in 24 hours, so you have to feed them to keep them gutloaded and make them more nutritious for your dragon.

 

[Sauzo]

Save yourself the trouble and go for dubia roaches over crickets. Dubias are quiet, fairly slow, don't jump or bite, easy to breed, and are meaty(1 equal size dubia is about the same as 3-4 crickets) and their gut content remains for about 72 hours if I remember correctly. And best of all they don't stink like crickets!! Only downside is they are more expensive and if you are doing a colony, you need to drop a decent amount of cash if you want to start feeding out of the colony fast. Otherwise for crickets, I used what others have, a 66 quart Sterilite tub with a hole cut in the top and screened. No substrate, just threw in paper towel and toilet paper rolls and gave em water crystals and stems and veggies from the stuff my beardie would eat as well as cricket chow. Kept them in my reptile room. This worked very well for 1000+ crickets which is what I would order. Have pretty much no deaths and they grew like weeds. Of course if you do feed dubias, be prepared for your beardie to refuse crickets after. At least mine won't eat crickets anymore after getting the taste of dubias.

 

[Demonica1610]

Wow! Thanks for the information everyone!!!

 

[Demonica1610]

I'm gonna look into dubias too

 

[icelore]

Before you drop a bunch of money on any new type of feeder (especially if you think you want to breed it) make sure you try it out for a few weeks first. My beardie, and several others on this forum, won't eat dubia. He usually flat out refuses them, or will eat them for a few days then stop. Some dragons are picky and won't eat certain things, so remember to try things out, and that in the end offering a variety is the best thing for your dragon anyway!

 

[CountofCasualty]

Another not one dubai: Make sure they're legal where you live. They aren't legal everywhere! There are other types of roaches you can feed and start a colony with, but I'm unsure of what type they are.

I use water crystals and high quality cat food(the same food I feed my own cats, it's called Acana and it's easily one of the best, if not the best I've ever fed them). Don't use a cheap cat food you can find in a grocery store, they'll be full of cheap gross fillers and not the best ingredients. You'll probably want a holistic cat or dog food, and check your ingredients in them as well. I'll throw left over greens he doesn't eat during the day in with them as well for extra, but you always want to feed something with high protein. For a while I was using cooked chickpeas, but they dry out quick and get kind of smelly.

 

[Sauzo]

Sorry, yeah be sure to order a batch of say 50 or 100 and make sure your dragon likes em. Mine just went bonkers over em but then again, Harley is a pig and will eat pretty much anything as long as isn't a cricket. Like I said, ever since she got dubias, she won't eat a cricket unless I trick her into it and that works once and it's over. So now I got like 500 crickets sitting in my reptile room that got the executioners reprieve since my Red Tail boa won't eat crickets haha. And yeah they aren't legal in Florida. You can also do Discordia roaches but I've read from people who breed those that they do bite even though people say they don't but that's another topic. Anyways, good luck on whatever you pick.