Methods of cleaning cricket set-ups?

[katieerin]

I get 500 at a time and have them in a Rubbermaid tote with a screen in the lid. There is cricket food, cricket water, and egg crates and paper towel tubes. I try to clean it once a week. Is it possible to clean the tote without losing like 50 crickets? My problem is mainly that I want to get out the cricket sheds and dead crickets, but I always lose a lot when I try to clean.

 

[Claudiusx]

What you could do is get a little dust pan and little broom and sweep up all the dead crickets/sheds/ and other materials into the dust pan. The living crickets usually will run away from the broom and dust pan so you won't need to worry about killing any.

 

[katieerin]

I will try that... I think I got a mini dustpan set from my bridal shower. But what I meant (I keep my crickets in a screened-in porch) is that I actually lose live crickets during the cleaning from moving the egg crates (and thus, most of the crickets) to another tote.

 

[Acill]

I found the best way is to just have two bins. I clean mine every other day, it takes no more then five minutes. What I do is take the new bin, put it down, tip the old over over and grab the egg crates up slow, transfer to new bin with crix on it, then the ones that are still in the old bin will walk to the edge. I chase the ones that wont go on there own and push them in the new one. This leaves all the dead ones and stuff in the bottom of the old bin. Just toss it all in the trash, hose out the crud, set out to dry and your done!

 

[cindyaguilarx3]

i take everything out of the bins i shake thecrix to a corner and i made a scoop out of the toilet paper roll. i took some tape so there is no stiky on it and taped it to one of the ends. when you shake the crix to one corner they want to go the oppisite way so i set the toilet paper roll that i made at the end and they just walk in. ill leave em alone for 5 min and i get a ton in there and just throw em in another bin

 

[RioReptiles]

I use a paint brush and sweep everything to one edge, using a stiff poster card, I sift the flass & shedds upward and drop it a few times making the crickets in it scatter away. I then wait a minute or two for the upset crickets to climb back up into the egg flats, then use the card like a dust pan against the edge of the bin to lift out the trash. I've got 2 bins with 2000 at a time in them, that's a lot of poo so it gets done every day.

 

[hammerhead]

One trick I can tell you is to move very slowly. I found that by doing this they don't jump off the cartons. It's good to have a 2nd bin, place it right beside the other one and just transfer them into the clean one. The remaining mess I sweep to the center with a paint brush and remove. Then dump the rest on a piece of paper that's in the clean bin. Once the crickets have left the paper, just remove it with the remaining mess. To clean the bin I just fill the bottom with water for a hour the blast it with the garden hose.

 

[Delshara]

I found the best way is to just have two bins. I clean mine every other day, it takes no more then five minutes. What I do is take the new bin, put it down, tip the old over over and grab the egg crates up slow, transfer to new bin with crix on it, then the ones that are still in the old bin will walk to the edge. I chase the ones that wont go on there own and push them in the new one. This leaves all the dead ones and stuff in the bottom of the old bin. Just toss it all in the trash, hose out the crud, set out to dry and your done!

I second the idea of having an extra bin. I had two cricket bins at one point and doing it this way allowed me to clean out both bins in about 3 minutes (timed myself once), except that I didn't bother with removing the stragglers.

 

[AutopsySoldier]

I found the best way is to just have two bins. I clean mine every other day, it takes no more then five minutes. What I do is take the new bin, put it down, tip the old over over and grab the egg crates up slow, transfer to new bin with crix on it, then the ones that are still in the old bin will walk to the edge. I chase the ones that wont go on there own and push them in the new one. This leaves all the dead ones and stuff in the bottom of the old bin. Just toss it all in the trash, hose out the crud, set out to dry and your done!

Thanks for posting how you do it! I'm doing it like this now and it works great!