I hate crickets. Please help me!

[BeardedBoroshlav]

I've been feeding crickets to Linnaeus for a while, but only now am I having problems.
I dread going to the cricket tank every time I feed him. The place is carnage--half of the crickets are dead, with bodies being fed on by their compatriots, dried exoskeletons clinging to the egg cartons, and crickets smashed under the weight of a misplaced feeding tube. Just today I saw a cricket three times the size of my usually feeders, wrecking havoc. It freaks me out!
I usually love insects in general, but I've always had a problem with dead ones. What do I do about it? The crickets are kept in a 10 gallon tank with cartons, greens and moist towels for water. Is the casualty rate supposed to be this high?
Alternatively, I would love to switch from crickets to a different feeder altogether. Unfortunately Linnaeus is only about five inches long right now. When can he switch to Repti-worms or something like that? Will I ever be able to replace crickets entirely?

Well, that's me spilling my emotions. I'm kinda having a mini-freakout right now, so any help or advice (or comfort) is GREATLY appreciated.

 

[aussiefreak101]

Dubia. Eady to keep, low die off, several sizes in their life cycle. They have a generally long life span when you compare them to crickets.

 

[AtlasStrike]

The things that most frequently kill crickets are too much humidity, too little heat and incorrect diet/moisture source and not cleaning their enclosure, which causes a whole host of other problems. I use cartons and towel rolls in a 40 quart tub, with a heat pad on a rheostat. I sprinkle raw oatmeal on the bottom to control moisture, they also eat it. I use water crystals or cotton balls soaked in water, but that needs to be replaced every day or you wouldn't believe the bacteria that you could culture from it. I also offer them greens daily and dry cat food for protein. Without protein and proper moisture, they can and will cannibalize and generally be horrible. I clean out the whole thing and replace the cartons and towel rolls three times a week. Charlie hasn't eaten any since I got them at 3 weeks old on the 15th of December, and they are pretty much all still alive.

 

[lizardmom]

I clean out the crickets frequently. Give them plenty of egg cartons to climb on. Lift those out rapidly and immediately into a new bin. Then shake the old bin a bit until all the contents are on one end. Tip it slowly toward the clean bin and all the live crickets will crawl right down into the new bin and leave the dead ones behind. If you can hold a bin lid just above the stream of walking crickets, you will have few to no escapes.

Crickets are much, much nicer kept clean like that. I keep mine in a Rubbermaid bin with a large section of the top cut out and replaced with aluminum screen. At night I cover the bin with a pillow. That's the other thing that makes them nicer. Hundreds of crickets make a LOT of noise.

Fewer crickets will die if they are warm, well-fed, and have water crystals available all the time. It is cheaper to get water crystals in bulk off eBay. I feed all the insects chicken feed (very cheap), fruit and veggie scraps, and any salad that the dragons don't eat, whether from their bowl or from the fridge when it's past its prime. I keep all the insects warm with a heating pad under the bins, so they will reproduce well. (A heated mattress pad is great if you need a lot of surface area.)

But I like dubia much better than crickets. They can't fly or climb, so they can't escape. They don't smell even if I'm late cleaning them, other than sometimes a little fruity, like old apples. I can handle them now, but initially the ick factor was high. I just put a cardboard roll from toilet paper in the bin. They would climb into it, so I could use it as an easy, no-touch feeder container. I bought my colony of several hundred for $20 on Craigslist. I give them extra heat with a lizard rock in their container. They swarm it instantly every time I clean them!

For the dubia, they are easy to sex (adult males have wings, older male juveniles have a small and narrow final segment). I feed my lizards males to females about 3:1, so as to keep the girl roaches for making babies.

 

[ShannyBeard]

Crickets are much, much nicer kept clean like that. I keep mine in a Rubbermaid bin with a large section of the top cut out and replaced with aluminum screen. At night I cover the bin with a pillow. That's the other thing that makes them nicer. Hundreds of crickets make a LOT of noise.

YESSSS. We had problems with crickets, too, until we realized you have to be fastidious in keeping them clean. We live in Florida and it is humid here. We will get a house full of fruit flies if we don't keep the cricket bin clean.

Here is our secret, which is a little easier since we didn't modify the trashcan. We have a kitchen 15 gallon standard trash can with lid. We buy pre-adult crickets 300 at a time. We keep cardboard egg carton pieces and paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls (the roll part after the towels are used LOL) in the bottom for the crickets to hide. We feed them the cricket cubes.

Every single time we buy crickets, which is 1 to 2 times a week, I remove all the 'good' crickets that I can get out to feed them, and then I go outside with the trash can and dump it, with all the crud and the bodies and whatever live crickets I couldn't get out. We lose maybe 5 live crickets this way.

I wipe it out, bring it inside, and fill it 1/2 way with hot, soapy water and leave it soak. Then I scrub it out and dry it out and put in the new crickets.

Never, ever let that bin go without cleaning it out as if you were making it brand new. Also don't keep any of the nasty cardboard hide things for them. They get wet, nasty and stinky so toss them before that happens and get new ones.

That's what works for us!!!

 

[Zeusmybeardie]

Wait should I use a heat pad under the tub???