Crickets and Fleas??

[ErinMeetsMachine]

I got back from Brazil on Friday and my dad did a wonderful job taking care of spot. Her belly was white, she was hydrated and her food dish didn't have much wilted stuff in it and plenty of fresh greens. She hadn't pooped in about three days, but it is because she wasn't eating many crickets. I had bought some worms for her before I left and that's all she wanted even though they were all gone. I was surprised I even HAD crickets when I got home. I went downstairs to see how many and to clean them out... within the few dead crickets I found FLEAS!!! It was so odd. I've only had Spot and taken care of crickets for 6 or 7 months now, but I've never seen that! I have two dogs and a cat, but they are very clean and don't have fleas. We've never had fleas anywhere and here there are.. fleas. Has this ever happened to anyone? I decided to throw out the remaining crickets because I didn't know if that meant they weren't healthy. There weren't many left, I just thought it was a safe measure in case the fleas were a sign of something.

Anyone ever have fleas in their crickets before? Is it something that I should bring up to the company? I don't know if they were there when I originally bought the crickets.. there were so many... or if they spawned themselves out of dust. Any suggestions??

BTW, Brazil was amazing!

 

[hammerhead]

Are you sure they were fleas? They only go for blood. I'm having trouble with tiny flys now. Maybe they are going at the heat source.

 

[invictusrules]

Bummer. I HATE fleas!!!!!! Are you 100% sure they're fleas? There are some little bugs that hang out with crix sometimes, like Hammerhead says.

Is your cricket container open? Maybe the fleas jumped in and couldn't get out. It would be really weird if they came in with crickets. They can't feed on them, and there's no good reason for them to come in a shipment. Most likely, the little menaces hitched a ride on YOU a few weeks ago! My husband once had one jump out of his beard. Very embarrassing. If you get one gravid female, you've got an infestation.

If you're sure they're fleas, and they're in your house, you'll probably need to treat your dogs and cat with that oily stuff or they'll become flea-factories. We vacuumed like crazy and sprinkled some kind of powder (can't remember what it was). Some people put down a shallow bowl of soapy water under a light, and the fleas go to the light and drown in the water. Don't know if that really works.

Oooo... just thinking about this makes me itch! Good luck!