crickets dying off

[tgolden]

I have just recently switched from small crix to normal sized ones and i'm having mass die offs. Out of 100 i'll have up to 50 just kill over belly up.
I feed them fluckers cricket quencher and also dry juvenile bearded dragon food. Anybody else had this problem?
~tommie

 

[Trajega]

Saddly, I found the following can all cause mass cricket death:

Mold
Lack of circulation
humidity too high
too crowded
temperature fluctates too quickly
a few flies get in and make them sick



These are the reasons most switch off of crickets. They arent easy to breed or keep alive.

 

[AllanonsWrath]

With the correct set up crickets are actually fairly easy to maintain. There is a post on the forums done by DNADragons on cricket care. It's very good and is what I have been doing for the last year. One big reason crickets die off is the temperature. I keep mine underneat the 120gal tank that houses my CWD. The heat from the heat cable under his pool keeps the cabinet nice and warm for the crickets. Sometimes it will look like crickets are dead, and if you warm them up they will "come back to life". It's a state akin to Hybernation I think. If they don't warm up enough while in this state, they will eventually die off though.

 

[tgolden]

Thanks for the info!! I have moved them since i posted this and I seemed to have fixed the problem on accident lol :lol:
~tommie

 

[AtlasStrike]

If you get them from a healthy source, it isn't really that hard. They need a lot more room than you thing. I keep 500 in a 60 quart bin, and wouldn't put any more than that in there. I would say for 100, you need at least a 10 gallon tank or equivalent sized tub. Make sure there are plenty of holes for air circulation.