Has anyone used these?

[Strawburriez]

I've been looking at various places to order crickets online, and so far it looks like the cheapest is from reptilefood.com. I'm also currently using Fluker's orange cube cricket food and water- what the pet store recommended for us, so naturally I'm suspicious. Has anyone ordered crickets from reptilefood.com, or used Fluker's orange cube? If so, what did you think? If either one had poor results, shipments containing mostly dead crickets, or poor nutrition for your beardie from using the food and water cubes, please let me know. Thanks!

 

[Rory]

I feed my crickets mostly vegetable kitchen scraps, like apple cores, potato skins, and wilted greens. It's a lot cheaper than buying those cubes for them!

 

[NeosMom]

When I first got Fluffy as a baby I bought the orange cubes and was only buying crickets like 100 at a time. My attrition rate on crickets was unreal. Upon research, I found out that crickets can actually die from too many nutrients. Additionally, someone gave me some really terrific cricket care education and he told me that feeding them things like orange cube makes them poop more and unless you are doing spectacular cleaning daily you will have severe bacteria problems. So, I ditched the orange cube.

They get dry food sprinkled in their egg crate and a thin slice of sweet potato for moisture every day. I keep very clean, very healthy crickets.

 

[Strawburriez]

Wow, that's interesting. Is there any particular brand of dry cricket food you'd recommend?

I'm quite alright with ditching the orange cubes, honestly. I like being able to keep all my supplies, for Miguel and his food, in one place, and the orange cubes have to be refrigerated. Something about that just. . . Bothers me. o_o

I've already placed a cricket order, by the way. I found out that the Fluker's site was even cheaper for live cricket orders, so. . . I guess we'll find out tomorrow how well that works out. I hope they do deliver quality crickets, because it's a lot easier and cheaper to order online than it is to drive an hour and a half to the nearest PetSmart and pay the same price for 1/5 the amount. The only pet shops that are closer have either pre-packaged crickets, which are too big and mostly dead, or they only sell big crickets. They're healthy, but they're way too big for little Miguel, despite what Catherine, our local pet shop owner, insists. Her son keeps beardies, and she says she feeds the adult sized crickets to her hatchlings and they do just fine. . . Seems much too risky to me.

 

[NeosMom]

Adult crickets are definitely too big. You are right. Not only that, but adults really don't have any more protein than 3/4", just more chitin. So, there is no reason to buy adults period.

My dry food... I think is Flukers, but not 100% certain. I'll check for u tonight. Also, side note. I sprinkle a little Paprika on the egg crate with the dry food. The crickets eat it no problem and it brings out the red in my dragons.

 

[Strawburriez]

Paprika, that's interesting. My little baby Miguel looks like he's going to have some red in him. Thanks for the advice.

My order from Fluker's arrived today. Most were alive, which is good, but there were almost as many beetles and centipedes as crickets. I have no idea if there are the right amount of crickets- I think so, though. The biggest problem is that most of them are much bigger than what I ordered. Bigger than Miguel's head. I'm trying to feed him the smallest for now but there aren't many of those, and crickets grow too fast. I don't think I'll be ordering from Fluker's again, at least not for small crickets.

 

[Rory]

I have ordered my last few boxes from LLLReptile. The sizes are accurate, most of the shipment is alive, there are few to no beetle larvae, and the prices are the cheapest I've been able to find shipped. As a rule of thumb, I always order a size smaller than what I think Foster can eat, because I order batches of 1000, so it compensates for the growth/death of crickets. I don't have to order as often that way, but I have to clean out my cricket bin daily...

 

[Strawburriez]

LLLReptile, got it. :3 I ordered a size smaller too. Fluker's just let me down there. >.>

 

[AtlasStrike]

If you feed the crickets dry food and water crystals, you don't have to refrigerate anything. When I had them, I just fed leftover greens from Charlie's tank and the stems of the collards and turnip greens, dry cat food, raw oatmeal, breakfast cereal and other scraps. They do like protein though, so if you feed mostly veggies, make sure you add some meat or dry dog/cat food.

 

[reddragon087]

LLLReptile is the way to go, they are awesome. If you want your crickets to last longer I have tried various ways and the way that I have noticed works is using the cricket quencer calcium fortified so it adds to the calcium in your beardies diet and the flukers calcium fortified cricket feed. I use that for my crickets and I clean on a daily to every other day basis and I only get maybe a handful (about 5-8) daily dead crickets out of 500 which isn't bad.

 

[Strawburriez]

Wow, sounds great. I'll give them a try next time. Where can I find this cricket food of which you speak?

 

[reddragon087]

You can find it at any petsmart, petco, LLLReptile also carries both the cricket quencher and the cricket food at a decent price.

 

[Strawburriez]

Fantastic, I think I'll order some with my next batch of crickets. Thank you for the tip.

 

[DNADragons]

I have not found a better diet than fresh water, fresh veggies and a dry-corn based meal. However, I have personally fed vitamin/mineral dense diets to crickets without problems. They tend to eat larger amounts of them, but no drastic difference seen in the dragons or crickets. It was not a long term study however.

The biggest difference I have seen was fresh water over water dense fruits, veggies and hydrated polymers. The difference was observable in the bearded dragons as well as the crickets. (Crickets became super hydrated) I gravitate now towards veggies with more fiber and chlorophyll (dark green like kale, collard greens, etc). Cucumber is a great veggie to rapidly hydrate or nourish your crickets, but I do not use it as a staple. I do not use fruits.

Certain diets, especially water based diets (gels, cubes, re-constituted dry foods), and high fibrous will make crickets poop more, but the key is balance, provide three sources (water, veggies, and dry-base), and they will be healthy (if diet is the only issue that needs work).

 

[Strawburriez]

Water, veggies and dry food. Makes sense. Last night I tried something a little different- I took some of the left over home grown salad from dinner, added some of the mustard greens I currently have on hand for Miguel, and misted the whole thing with water like I do with my reptile's salads. . . Is that a decent water source? Fresh veggies that have been misted? Or is a separate source of water, like a gel or a little tray of it necessary? As for the dry food part, I'll have to look into that.