Cricket Smell

[Soconnor91]

I have a beautiful new baby beardy named Shenron. He is my first bearded dragon. Everything has been going great, he is healthy, eats all the time, has just shed, sleeps on my hand, he is attentive and I love him. My only complaint is how bad the crickets smell!! I don't mind bugs, but man I did not know how bad these little guys could smell. I usually keep them on my porch (I am in an apartment) but the apartment managers have been doing a lot of work with the water heater so I have had to bring them inside. Is there anything to do to keep them from smelling so much? I have considered getting dubias, but I think my apartment manager would FREAK if she ever saw me with a tank of cockroaches in one of her apartments. Thanks

 

[ruben0311]

you'll need to frequently clean out any fecal matter and dead crickets at bottom of cage, a dust-buster can do that nicely, just don't suck up the bugs haha! good ventilation will ensure that the gases don't accumulate within the tank itself. Crickets are big time cannibals, as they are naturally solitary and territorial, so make sure the dead are cleaned out daily.

 

[HKzForDayz]

You'll be much happier with dubias. Hard to fight the landlord prejudice. No reason they need to see the roaches. I always tell me landlords that I feed invertebrates to my reptiles. If they inquire further, I say something like insects, or sometimes dubias. I avoid the R word, because people are stupid. Lol. Check out discountdubias.com for good deals on them.

Please quit spamming on our forum.

 

[kingofnobbys]

I check my crickets every 2 or 3 days in summer. Remove all dead or dying crickets and give them fresh food and carrot.

 

[Nihilist]

I check my crickets every 2 or 3 days in summer. Remove all dead or dying crickets and give them fresh food and carrot.

You would be much happier with Dubias, I advised against going to the website above. People here like dubiaroaches.com but I use Amazon and Ebay. Raising a colony yourself is also very easy but takes time to getting it going. I was buying 100 crickets 2-3 times a week and couldn't stand the smell. My Beardie also refused to eat crickets after her first taste of Dubias.

 

[HKzForDayz]

I check my crickets every 2 or 3 days in summer. Remove all dead or dying crickets and give them fresh food and carrot.

You would be much happier with Dubias, I advised against going to the website above. People here like dubiaroaches.com but I use Amazon and Ebay. Raising a colony yourself is also very easy but takes time to getting it going. I was buying 100 crickets 2-3 times a week and couldn't stand the smell. My Beardie also refused to eat crickets after her first taste of Dubias.

So far, kfcfeeders.com seems to have the best price. 5000 smalls for 135 or you can get 2000 small mediums for 75.

 

[kingofnobbys]

I check my crickets every 2 or 3 days in summer. Remove all dead or dying crickets and give them fresh food and carrot.

You would be much happier with Dubias, I advised against going to the website above. People here like dubiaroaches.com but I use Amazon and Ebay. Raising a colony yourself is also very easy but takes time to getting it going. I was buying 100 crickets 2-3 times a week and couldn't stand the smell. My Beardie also refused to eat crickets after her first taste of Dubias.

Can't get dubias here (Australia), the roaches used here are woodies (Nauphoeta cinerea) . Crickets are fine IMO, and I'll be sticking with them.

 

[HKzForDayz]

Can't get dubias here (Australia), the roaches used here are woodies (Nauphoeta cinerea) . Crickets are fine IMO, and I'll be sticking with them.

Lol i was going to say something to the effect of you preferring crickets as a staple , as i always see you giving tips on how to make crix more tollerable, but i couldnt figure out if he was talking to OP and just happened to quote you, or if he was talking to you

 

[CooperDragon]

In addition to keeping the tank clean, I used to put down a bedding of the wood chips used for guinea pig enclosures (big bags of it are cheap at the pet store). I found that made it easier to clean (just scoop out the old substrate and replace) and it kept the smell down or at least masked it quite a bit.

 

[kingofnobbys]

In addition to keeping the tank clean, I used to put down a bedding of the wood chips used for guinea pig enclosures (big bags of it are cheap at the pet store). I found that made it easier to clean (just scoop out the old substrate and replace) and it kept the smell down or at least masked it quite a bit.

This is why I kept all the commercial (Piscus, BioLabs) cricket tubs , other than being handy for keeping stuff in (screws , small tools, nails, pens , batteries, etc) they clean up nicely with a little bit of water (from a spray bottle) and some paper towelling, and are easy to sterilise (I use F10 (from a special F10 spray bottle , dilution = 1:200) .

I simply use a 35L (file storage) tub to dump the crickets in the soiled keeper tub in, they essentially crawl out leaving the dead and sick behind, I then either use my old laboratory spatula (kept from my days as a analytical chemist in the steel works laboratories) to remove all dead and dying crickets and scrape out the cricket poo.
If the tub is clean enough to return the crickets to it, they then go back in with some fresh carrot and some more beardie pellets and maybe some buk choi greens or puk choi greens or kale.
If it's mucky - or infested with maggots (who have been eating the dead crickets), I replace the tub with one of spares , place the mucky tub in the garden bed out front - the little wild skinks (water skinks and delicate brown skinks will happily chow down on the maggots and any dying crickets or any crickets who have not been dead long enough to go off. The sun will help too, then I comes back inside to be cleaned and F10ed.
Some of the tubs have been in continuous use for over 7 years.

If you keep the bulk crickets in a bunch of smaller cricket tubs, you are unlikely to have more than one or 2 tubs worth of crickets die off if some arrive sick or infested with parasites. (My usual order of bulk crickets works out to be 10 - 12 tubs of crickets, I might loose 1 tub occasionally to a mini pandemic or paracites (small wasps ??). Only the crickets in the same small tub will be infected , not every cricket you have.