DO NOT BUY FROM REPTILECITY.COM

[alenke]

I have ordered from Ghanns many times and never had any problems. I also ordered from reptile city and got my crickets TWO months later. They never once offered to refund me. Everytime I called they never answered it took having my step dad call and chew someone out to get them shipped. And all they could say was that their cricket carrier messed up. I will never order from them again, for anything.

 

[lightheart]

Does anyone have advice on how to keep them alive? I ordered food and have a water source. Just need to figure out substrate.

I don't use a substrate with my crickets. Have seen where other people put paper towels in the bottom of their tubs. I find it easy enough to wipe it out and it doesn't appear that they slip and slide on the plastic. Ventilation is really good for the crickets, you don't want water to be consensing inside the tubs. I read where they will chew through the plastic screen wire, to use the wire type screen. I used plastic mesh for crafts/needlepoint http://www.hancockfabrics.com/Artist-Plastic-Canvas-7-Count-13-5-8-X21-5-8----Clear-Front-Page_stcVVproductId47571042VVcatId537258VVviewprod.htm because I had some here at the house. I guess the tiny tiny crickets might squeeze out of the holes, but we don't keep the teeny tiny crickets. I cut 2 windows on each side of the tub and one in the lid, hotglue worked the best for me to attach the mesh. I use the yellow flukers cricket quencher and I also have a little cap/cup that I keep a wet cotton disc in (found them in the makeup section near the cotton balls). I give them scraps of veggies and fruit, anything that I would feed to my dragon. Also a dry ready made cricket food. I've had very few crickets to die on me, think I have more die from getting squished from boxes, paper towel tubes and egg crates getting moved around than from them dying from something else. I change out their veggie food at least every other day -colards, squash, carrots for things like grapes, tomatoes that get icky fast I change them daily. Depending on my schedule the cricket bin gets cleaned about every 6 days.


100_4103 by lightheart.lightheart, on Flickr

more pictures http://www.flickr.com/photos/lightheart/sets/72157625755216338/with/5327459825/

 

[nicolenreakus]

Looks great! The only thing I didn't do was put the screen on the sides of my bin. The cats will get them!!! I had my 1,000 housed since Thursday and they have been doing really good. I give them squash every day, cricket quencher, and Ghanns cricket feed. They have been doing great, thank God! Save lots of money!
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/cc420/nicolenreakus/Rex/006.jpg
http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/cc420/nicolenreakus/Rex/008.jpg

I did put less cricket quencher in there and added squash. I keep the light on when I'm home and turn it off at night. I have smaller crickets so I want to make sure they don't drop below 70.

 

[Frogsong]

I wanted to add that when I was buying crickets in increments of 2000 I had a lot die on me too. Then I started throwing roses, (the flowers) in for them. I figured if the bearded dragons could eat them, they crickets could too. They loved them, and for some reason they seemed to live longer when the roses were in bloom. So there must be something in them that is good for them.

You have to make sure no bug killer is used on your roses though.