Buying crickets online - size?

[LucisAbsentia]

Hello! I've decided, after the rate Gabriel's been eating this week, that I need to buy bulk online. I'm intending on buying from premiumcrickets, but my question is, what size? I've never measured my crix, but I'd say they're probably about 5/8ths, the ones that Gabriel eats. Gabriel himself is about 13" long, and he's growing very rapidly right now (he's a little over a year old, if the information given to me was correct when I adopted him). Is that a good size to buy them at? I'm afraid of buying them too small and him going through a lot of them at one time, but I also don't want them to grow to full capacity, since wings make them very noisy and since I've heard the chitin is more tough on a beardie's gut.

Also, would it be alright to store them in an old glass tank? I think it's a 20 gal, I was using it to try and breed dubias until my room was destroyed and the redecoraters decided to redo my room before I could move the tank. I think I can rustle up a plastic container, if not. Or I'll go buy one.

 

[CooperDragon]

I used to order 1,000 of the 1/2 inch crickets and they'd last about a month. I kept them in a 20g tank with a screen top. I put cardboard tubes on one side and their food/water on the other. The water crystals they sell are useful for hydrating them. They offer a grain chow that's good as well but beware that the packages may have grain mites which are a huge pain to get rid of. I used to microwave the chow in batches to ensure any mites are killed off. I'm still on the fence about if it was worthwhile or not. Either way I'd offer fresh veges for them to eat too. I found that putting down some wood chip bedding (the kind for guinea pigs etc) helps keep the smell down and makes it a little bit easier to clean the tank.

 

[LucisAbsentia]

Okay! I'll order the half inch then. And perfect, I can absolutely set up my tank with that. I've been feeding my crickets oranges, usually, and I have a few leftover crystals from the dubias and also reusable pouches that I found at Petco. Now, I have tons of leftover chow from the dubia as well, would I be able to use that up on the crickets?

 

[CooperDragon]

Yep that should work on the crickets too. I switched the other direction and found that there is a lot of crossover in their care.

 

[LucisAbsentia]

Alright! Then I think I'm all set. Thank you, you've been a wonderful help as always!

 

[AHBD]

Good advice from Cooper as always. I'd just like to add that you can use oatmeal on the bottom instead of wood chips. It serves the same purpose and they can eat it as well. Very easy to sift it out, too. Your dragon can eat the 3/4 " size crix, but there may be some chirpers in there at that size. Of course as he grows you'll be getting larger crix than that and you'll have them singing all the time, then you might decide to go for dubia's instead.

 

[LucisAbsentia]

Hah, I was just about to post something about the bedding! Will their odor control product work? Simply an out of convenience question, I'm perfectly willing to go buy what's been suggested if it's not good.

Yeah, chirpers don't really bother me /too/ much, but in a batch of 1000, it might tick me off after a while. And I'm worried about them growing /too/ big by the end of the month, in which case I wouldn't be able to feed them to him. But by the time he's eating bigger ones for good, I don't think I'll need to buy so many insects, so I won't mind spending more on dubia roaches. My biggest thing right now is that, while I love Gabriel to death and I would really prefer to feed him dubias, it's simply the most cost effective to buy 1000 crickets currently. And right now, that's a big issue for me.

EDIT: sorry, my train of thought is all over the place, I promise all of this makes sense in my head.

 

[CooperDragon]

The oatmeal is a good idea! Does it help with the smell as well? That would be a good option to replace the commercial chow.
I found that by ordering them at 1/2'' they're on the small side to start with but grow quite a bit over the course of the month and the last ones left tend to be pretty large. I also recall them being much noisier as the temperatures increased. I noticed the ones I ordered from PremiumCrickets were generally much quieter than the ones from Petco. Not sure if that had more to do with size or the type of cricket they offer.

 

[AHBD]

Oh, I Googled + saw that on Premium's website....actual odor control bedding. It seems to have good reviews, too. I've used oatmeal with good results, of course you have to be vigilant about getting dead crix out for obvious reasons including odor. But their product may be superior for odor control or may be similar. Your choice.

 

[LucisAbsentia]

Crickets came today! I got their habitat all set up. One question, I noticed there's a decent amount that aren't really dead, but they're just sort of weakily wriggling around on the bottom. I think I read in another post to just leave them alone to warm up and they should be fine? It's this valid or do I have a lot of soon to be dead crix?

 

[AHBD]

It could be one or the other or both. Is it cold where you are ? The crix can be very weak and then come to life after an hour or so if they get cold during transit....if they don't perk up in a couple of hours there may be some that will end up dead.

 

[LucisAbsentia]

It's fairly cold, it's about 40F outside. I expect some of them to be dead of course, but I'm hoping some of them are just weak.

 

[AHBD]

Crickets can recover from that pretty easily. Only freezing cold usually kills them....or in the summer the heat will as well.

 

[LucisAbsentia]

Alright! Cool, then Im just going to leave them alone for a few hours and hopefully most of them have perked up by then!

 

[AHBD]

How are they , chirping or croaking ?