For those of you that buy crickets from PetCo...

[leeksoldier]

I buy about 50 and feed them to Alex in an either two or three say period. I just keep the crickets in the bag until I am ready for them. Sometimes there is mushy stuff in there and sometimes it is orange. What is that? It smells really bad. Is it dead crickets that were smushed perhaps?

 

[jeschardies]

If you are buying crickets from Petco, you are spending way too much money! The Petco near me sells crickets for 10-11 cents a piece. Crazy! If you order online, you get quality crickets, first off, and you can bring the cost down to 2 cents a piece. I order thru a reptile shop who orders bulk for customers and get 1000 crix for $19.
Second, you can get a small cricket keeper that works well for small amounts of crickets. This gives you some floor space to provide your feeders with nutrients. Remember, if you don't gutload your feeders, you are just feeding your beardie more shell then the feeder is worth.
Look into some threads about ordering feeders and I don't think you'll be disappointed.
How old is your beardie and how many does he eat a day?

 

[ClydesGirl]

You can also order crickets online from various farms. I get mine from Ghann's. I keep them in a large KricketKeeper (TM) and feed them Flucker's Cricket Feed w/ Calcium and give them that water-gel stuff to keep them hydrated. How old/big is your beardie? Mine's fairly young and small still and he eats 30-40 crickets a day! I can't imagine spending ten cents a cricket at that rate!

 

[leeksoldier]

He's 8 months and eats about 20-25 a day.
I've ordered crickets from Flukers a couple of times before, and the first time worked out great. Though the second time, they all ended up dying after a few days. I put these orange cubes of cricket feed for them to eat and a sponge with water in it. So after that, I haven't ordered any more. Plus I just moved and I'm still getting all set up and what not. Painting, cleaning, furnishing, all that.

 

[jeschardies]

I wonder if the paint fumes had an affect on your crix. They are sensitive to fumes....
No worries on the explination for getting crix from Petco. I've had to do it before....Just wanted to make sure you knew that there are better options available. It took us a while to move up from the small cricket keeper to the larger one and now to our bin, but if you take care of them, they will last you quite a while. Our 1000 last almost 2 weeks between our 2 beardies. Our two juveniles eat about 20-30 per sitting though....

Regarding your question about the orange stuff with your crix, I have seen small amounts from a local pet store. I am not sure what it is, but assumed it was maybe from a food item. Sorry I don't have that answer, but any food/questionable item that stains egg cartons like that scares me about putting it into my beardies......

Good luck with the move....

 

[leeksoldier]

Well...thank you got your replies.