Feeder crickets dying lost 900 in a week

[TooRNelm]

Looking what fuctioning

 

[BBTrucker]

Man your still losing crickets super fast?

oh. Hey how much do u have for them to climb on if there cage is over crowded with things to climb on and poo on that will cause rapprapid death also and at 1.25 A roach man hissers go for that on the high end for an adult. Dont let people rip u off dubia roaches go for about 10-20cents a piece when sold indevidually but go to that Dubaideli.com and buy them by weight.

 

[bobbycarp]

They had 9 18 count egg cartons in the tub. Still convinced the small crickets get caught in the channel around the outside of the tub. Switching to phoenix/repti/calci worms and roaches.

All of you here are awesome and a lot of help. Thank you all!

 

[BBTrucker]

Oh hey that channel problem I know what your talk about now yeah I had a similar problem but. Now I don't put but about 3 egg crate slides and cut them in halves and stand them long way across the bottom so the crickets can't just climb in to the channel they have to jump to it. And as for the lid. I like your idea earlier about cutting a hole in the top and putting a mesh top aacross it I had to do something like that when I was breeding hissers they climb and there babies are lil escape artist. I used fishing line and the Cindy of window screen stitched it on to the metal top and there ya go also worked for my adult dragon cage. The wire mesh was to open

 

[skateanddonate]

What temperature are you keeping your crickets at?

 

[littlegoron]

im sorry you've been having such a rough go with the crickets! I was buying from a local pet shop for my leopard gecko and they cost 8.50 CAD for 50 crickets, and over 15 of them would be dead at the bottom before i bought them, and then the rest would die really quickly in a day. i can only assume the crickets were just poorly cared for in the pet shop, or they took too long to get sent out and ended up dying. I buy small crickets from pet smart currently and in the past 10 days i've bought over 300 of them, and i've had maybe 4 end up dead, which is excellent. i ended up buying my large crix there too for my leopard gecko and i wanna know their cricket source because they are so hardy and feed well, and i havent lost a large one yet!

im really sorry you've lost out so much money as i know they can be a costly thing for a small fella like you have, i feel for you there. i hope you have better luck with the worms, maybe you can find a better source for your cricket purchases. But if they keep dying it could be something in your home causing it, that you dont realize. Very strange. Best of luck, though!

 

[bobbycarp]

I switched stores for crickets for now and they are staying alive. Also bough calciworms. Most of those were dead in the can so they gave me 4 cans for the prices of one. I want to see if he'll eat them before I go ordering reptiworms or phoenixworms.

Small crickets at the new store are quite a bit bigger than the other store. That cut the cricket cost by over half since he eats less of them.

 

[icelore]

46 dead this morning out of my purchase of 50 yesterday afternoon.

No offense, but you've got to be doing something wrong. Crickets are somewhat fragile, but they don't just die off in droves like that. Petstores do lose a large percentage of crickets, but they are over crowded and not fed, so that contributes. If you are keeping them in a clean, dry container (moisture will kill them) with good ventilation, and feeding them (high moisture foods for liquid as well as a grain and protein for food), they shouldn't die at all. Some people have issues using plastic tubs because of not enough ventilation. Drilling holes in the top isn't enough, the whole top needs to be cut away and covered with screen/mesh. If the ventilation isn't right, the moisture will be too high as well. Also, if they don't have tubes or egg crates, they will kill each other off if they're cramped.

I have kept my last batch of 1500 alive in a 10gal tank, and while they're are only a few left (I've had them for a month), I didn't experience much die off past the first day after I got them. They were 3/8in when I got them and the ones that are left are all huge adults now (eww). They are *really* sensitive to heat - maybe that is your issue? Before I got my most recent order in, I bought 2doz med/lg. from the pet store to hold me over, it was about 80 outside, and they were all dead by the time I got them home. I keep my bulk cricket tank in a dark closet in my office where it's cool, and put a few days worth of feeders into a cricket keeper for easy feeding and have no issues. I give the bulk tank a handful of whole grain cereal and some high quality dog food every week when I clean them out, and a slice of some random fruit for water every other day. In the keeper I feed out of I just put dragon chow pellets and leftover dragon salad. No waste! lol

 

[skateanddonate]

And that nails my problem these days...which I haven't found a work around for yet. So my beardie may need to learn to live on only salad for the next three months...

It is between 105° and 110° most days here. I live 75 miles from the pet store and the closest UPS center.

(1) With 110° temperatures and a 90 minute drive home getting the crickets home alive from the pet store is difficult. If they don't run out of air they overheat.

(2) The two online places I've ordered from don't give you a tracking number until they ship after 5. With overnight delivery the UPS center is closed by the time you get the number and they are loaded on the truck before they open in the morning so getting the package held at UPS center for pickup is impossible. Unless I put a permanent hold on ALL packages to my address. Seriously cant afford a $20 in gas 150 mile trip to pickup each thing I get shipped just to save one package a month.

How do people get live feeder insects delivered during the high temperatures of summer?

Also, I have placed many cricket orders of 1000 plus. All of them have lived fine in their 10 gallon tank and nothing changed with my methods. However the ordered placed in late March from Flucker Farms arrived with 45% dead and another 30% died within the next two days. This was BEFORE temperatures rose to over 80° and my methods of caring for them did not change. So I'm pretty sure it wasn't my fault.

 

[CountofCasualty]

You need to find an alternate to crickets. Dubai, repti or pheonix, supers, horns, silks, butters. Obviously crickets aren't working for you, so feed something else.