Crickets from bait shop

[7hunder68]

I've realized recently that crickets from my local bait shop are way cheaper than what I buy at the pet store. At the pet store 100 would cost around 10 dollars, while at the bait shop they are only 4 dollars for 100. Are these bait shop crickets the same as what I buy at the pet store?

 

[CooperDragon]

I would avoid the bait shop crickets because you can't be sure how they're bred and raised. They may not be kept in clean conditions and could be more likely to spread parasites or illness. It's best to buy reptile feeding grade bugs. I definitely feel the pain of paying through the nose for bugs. Local pet store used to charge 14 cents per cricket (!). I found it much more cost effective to buy them in bulk online and keep them in a big ventilated bin. I would order about 1000 per month from premiumcrickets. They are about $30 after shipping. I eventually gave up on crickets and started a dubia roach colony and have found them to be a lot easier to care for and a lot less noisy/stinky.

 

[traildrifterphalanx]

Aside from the great points from Cooper, owning frogs has taught me that bait shops sometimes will add additional chemicals etc to help entice fish and other "game", which are not safe for consumption. They will add materials to make them more fluorescent for fish to help make them enticing. Granted, this was regarding worms like nightcrawlers, but I believe this would apply to other forms of bait as well, not to mention they are not concerned about the condition of this bait as it's not meant to be food grade, just enough to land you a catch.