lllreptile

[jakeh2009]

just received an order of crickets today, had good luck with millbrook crickets but thought i would try some other places, well of the 1000 ordered over half were dead. the temps outside in IL were not that cold this week, kind of unhappy with this order.. I called and they said they would ship 500 out free of charge next week, which is nice but what if it happens again lol. What is the easiest way to sort the dead ones? i made an order of 1/2 inch and its just a mess. so just from my experience be careful when ordering from them. And another thing that bugs me is that they require a signature on deliver, well the damned fedex guy never knocked or anything, ive been home all day and the tv off, i would have heard it.. Ok time to start sorting, sorry for ranting but wow hahah

 

[DistDrag]

I have to say I wouldn't recommend ordering crickets from anywhere that ships them 2 day. I can't say for sure but LLL probably doesn't raise their own either so your not getting as fresh of crickets to start with. I think I recall someone posting the name of a cricket farm in IL. and their pricing was really reasonable. I'd check it out. A couple other recommendations would be http://www.ghann.com/ and http://www.reptilefood.com/reptilefood/. I've had excellent luck with both in the past. In cold weather Ghann does a better job though.

I can relate to your frustration on the signing for packages too. I have had so many show up that required a signature but just got dropped on my front step. I always have to watch when I know their coming.

Kevin

 

[jakeh2009]

i will have to look into those other sites, on the package label it says tophat crickets so they must be in kahoots with each other. I was watching out the window for the driver, i seen him one block over so i hurried up and put some shoes on and got the dog on her leash, sat out there for probably 15 minutes and he was still at courthouse so i came back in and watched out the window for him, and nothing. Even placed a note on the door telling him id be home all day and asked him to knock loudly. lllreptile rep said she would put it on my instructions to knock louldy and require a sig next time. oh well.

 

[mpbrown2]

I buy through tophat crickets and I have had great success with them. Free ground shipping which gets to me the next day. I have not had any die offs just a smashed one her and there.

Hopefully I will only have to deal with cricket for another month or two... Yay DUBIA!!

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

When I grew up I got really friendly w/ a couple guys that ran a pet store in my hometown and after going there w/ my mom I was cleared by her to quit my paper route and become a permanent fixture at the store after school. The petstore used to deal w/ reptiles, amphibians, tropical and saltwater fish. I remember learning the fine art of raising crickets from my buddy Gene. Now at that point I'd been keeping reptiles for half my life and making my weekly pilgrimage to the pet shop and buying my weekly stock of food for my animals.

I remember telling Gene... "This is a lot of work raising these things. Why don't we just order them?" (At the time I used to help w/ the ordering and I'd see 1000ct, 5000ct, 10,000ct etc. on the crix). He told me that they used to and it was always hit and miss. The crix would either come in mostly in tact or they'd have mass casualties. It was more efficient to raise them in house for our customers. Now this was back in probably like 1989-1990 ish... Sounds to me like the cricket industry hasn't changed all that much in the last 18 years or so.

If I were you I'd salvage what you can from this order and start breeding your own. After I learned how to breed crix, I did it for at least 8 years until I switched over to roaches. I had great success w/ them. It's a lot of work (by my standards anyway) but if you don't mind it than you won't have to go through this aggravation any more.

BTW I am going to defend MOST of the cricket farmers out there, not all of them... Just MOST of them. Crickets aren't that hardy of a feeder anyway, so shipping them can be a real pain in the butt. They just drop dead for no apparent reason. I know that a lot of these companies put just as much care and effort into shipping their product as any other feeder company out there. The odds have just always been stacked against them. They've always taken a constant beating on the complaint lines and I gotta give them props for having thick enough skin to deal w/ that. No way in hell would I want to be in their shoes. They can have the cricket industry.

-Ian
http://www.theroachranch.com

 

[jakeh2009]

lol yea i hear ya, i guess i cant be mad at them cuz im sure they didn't scoop all the dead ones and put them in my package, just happened in the process of being shipped, everything is cleared up now. if i wasnt broke as a joke id be having some roaches as well, tired of smelling the crickets... someday hopefully not to far away. ill get in touch with ya ian when i come up with the cash

 

[Elora]

i have used lllreptile for a long time because the prices where the lowest but i just tried premiumcrickets.com and i got SO MUCH MORE they are a better place to go imo. i ordered 100 super worms from mulberryfarms and got around 100 but when i ordered 100 supers from premiumcrickets the container i keep them in was twice as full. they put A LOT extra in, i couldn't belive it!

 

[jakeh2009]

yea once i get the replacement order of 500 i will go going elsewhere. im not sure if i just got a bad batch or what but i bet out of the thousand maybe 200 lived. more and more just keep dropping off. I dont know if there is such a think as bad batch but i could see maybe 100 dying in the first few days but over 3/4 of the order, think i will just stick to millbrooks.

heres what it looked like when i dumped the box out and heated it up for a few hours

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

I can smell that over here. That sux bro, sorry to hear about that. Just salvage what you can and get up and breeding those bad boys.

-Ian
http://www.theroachranch.com

 

[Epic]

Just seeing theose pictures brings me back to the cricket days. While your beardie is still interested in crickets, you should start a roach colony.

 

[jakeh2009]

got the replacement order last week and it was mostly dead too, not happy with that so i called them and asked for a refund, they said they dont normally do refunds but since out of 1500 i had a few hundred alive on arrival they granted a refund. so i guess that a good thing. i dont think it had anything to do with the company at all i think it was with fedex. the replacement order was shipped on a monday and i did not receive it until friday. it sat at the same location for 2 days. not sure what that is all about but could have been the issue. but i think ill just steer clear of them from now. had good luck with millbrooks so i ordered from them today and will receive on wednesday. hes getting pretty big now so i ordered the 3/4 inch instead of the 1/2 inch. not as much shelf life on them but the way he has been going through them im sure they will be gone before they die.

 

[MissPaula]

the two sites that i like best for crickets are premiumcrickets.com and flukerfarms.com. premium has the healthiest crickets i have ever received, and flukers are decent and have the cheapest overnight shipping to my area hands down. i would love to try dubias though....sigh.....

 

[jakeh2009]

well i was suprised to see today when i woke up that my crickets are out for delivery, ordered them yesterday and getting them today, thats pretty good, 1000 cricks for 20 bucks overnight. the last time millbrooks took two days. if i had them shipped to a business then it would have only been 18 dollars, but they charge $2 for delivery to a residence... all in all i feel thats a great deal.

 

[zebraflavencs]

I would be more than happy to pop you off around 50 breeding adults, if you would pay for shipping... That way you can at least have a starting place for your own roaches. I have mostly turks, around 300 dubs and 10-15 lobs.
Janie.