Crickets, bugs, dubias, I'm a sissy

[kimmie]

How do you do it? Handle them that is? I'm getting all the hairs standing on the back of my neck just THINKING about them! Do you get used to it?

Right now I feed crickets and phoenix worms - and NEITHER of them I touch! Use the tube in the keeper to gather the crickets and tweezers to pick out worms!

Yesterday I transferred the shipment of 500 crickets to the keeper (via a juice pitcher) because I just can't bare to touch them! And I freaked when 6 of them got out and on me!

I can handle dragons, snakes, tarantulas, etc but NOT creepy fast running bugs!

Is there hope for me? :lol:

 

[Buggsy]

Three years ago i was exatly the same lol! You do get used to them, i still hate crix as they are just too fast! Locusts are much easier to handle and im really good with worms now!

 

[keschete]

I use barbeque tongs to pick up superworms....they creep me out.

 

[Goonie]

[Moved from General to Feeders]

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I, too, was totally skeeved by the mere sight of the live feeders, but knowing that I had no choice unless I wanted my beardies to starve, I just went in with all my might and touched them.

Crickets I still get skeeved at, but thank goodness Pookie doesn't like them anymore.

 

[mickeysmomma]

I have gotten better, but still wear those rubber gloves, like gloves you use to cleanwith, when dealing with the crickets. I don't like the feeling of when they jump on me. 99% of the time when they jump, the glove is long enough up my arm that I don't feel it.

I use tweezers for the worms also!

 

[JeffSimpson]

How do you do it? Handle them that is? I'm getting all the hairs standing on the back of my neck just THINKING about them! Do you get used to it?

Admittedly, at first, I was a bit concerned about the whole concept. Living in Michigan, the largest / meatiest insect I've ever see in wild was probably a grass hopper. Maybe a cicada, but you almost never see them. However, once you have them for awhile, all the concerns went away. It's not like you need to dig around in the box barehanded to get them, so they are still pretty "hands off" in that regard. Using some buckets with small holes in the bottom you basically just shake them to sort them. Those get dumped into a smaller container. When you go to feed them, I just shake some out. To be honest, I forget they are even there most of the time.

If you are really freaked, go ahead and order few and spend some time with it. If you are dealing with crickets now, you'll be glad you did.

 

[romanfj]

Go to the drugstore and get a box of nitrile gloves. These are the brightly colored gloves they use at the hospitals and do not contain latex (no chance for an allergic reaction). You'll get a lot more dexterity for grabbing and picking the roaches up than with household cleaning gloves.

My wife and I were both phobic and it took a couple months of self-forced handling every day, but on a scale of 1-10, we're both down to 1-2. It's like anything else you fear or don't like. If you start small and keep dealing with it, eventually it won't bother you as much.

I still cant touch larvae of any kind

Frank

 

[Sapphire]

Phoenix worms grossed me out when I first got them... Nasty squirmy icky things. But when it came time to feed my dragon, I picked them up with my bare hands. It's not like they're going to burrow into your skin or lay eggs in you or anything. I like to drop some into the palm of my hand and let my baby eat them from there. He LOVES phoenix worms.

The only reason I don't like handling crickets is because they're small and fast, and I don't want them to get out of the bin cuz then it's hard to find them and then I get phobic about them being free in my apartment. I'm afraid I'll be sitting here minding my own business and a cricket will jump on me and scare me half to death or something. But that hasn't happened yet....

 

[mark83]

I used the 10" tongs you can get at pet stores or online to pick up each cricket 1 at a time. Of course I had to feed them by tongs cuz my beardie couldnt catch them on her own(mbd). I got dubias on the way now and I cant wait cuz they will be WAY easier to catch, dont chirp and dont really smell.

 

[Sapphire]

I'm debating on starting a dubia colony. Not sure how well that will go over with my significant other... Not sure how well it will go with me, either, cuz roaches are waaaay creepier to me than crickets are.

 

[mark83]

Agreed but for me the benefits out-weighed the creepy factor. I watched quite a few youtube vids on peoples dubia colonies and the more I watched/researched the less they bothered me.

 

[Sapphire]

How big is a full-grown dubia, anyway? I think once my dragon is bigger I might switch to those. Crickets work now, while he's small and I don't have to buy adults (he eats 1/4"-1/2" now). Once he's big enough to eat the noisy adult crickets and I start having trouble sleeping because all I hear is "CHIRRRRRP, CHIIIRRRRPPP, CHIIRRRRP" all night........... I won't want crickets anymore.

 

[mark83]

Adult dubia get around 2" but they have more meat on them so I've heard a full grown beardie only eats around 5 before being full. I dont know tho since I havnt gotten mine yet. Never would have thought I'd be excited to be having a box of roaches mailed to my house. Sounds like a prank or something

 

[Sapphire]

Lol I know, I told my sister, "Most people pay money to get bugs OUT of their house. I pay money to have hundreds of them shipped to my doorstep."

 

[kimmie]

Actually the chirping doesn't bother me (of course the ones I have don't chirp yet, too young) but all we have to do is open a window and it's a chorus outside of crickets, frogs and whatever else. Living on the edge of a woods gets you used to those things!

I seriously and I mean SERIOUSLY don't think I can do roaches!