Prolong Life of Crickets?

[duanehb]

Hello~
I've been feeding my girl Mushu crickets for her entire life(6.5 mos.), and it seems every time I buy a new box of crickets, at least 50 out of the 1000 I order die... What can I do To help make them live longer?

I buy my crickets from Fluker Farms (everybody else has higher shipping rates, and I've had good experience with delivery and customer support), and feed them the Fluker's orange cube... I clean out the dead ones every time i get food for her...

What can I do to solve the mystery of them dying?

 

[CooperDragon]

I had the same problem with crickets and compared to what I saw, 50 dying out of 1000 is pretty good. Your best bet for their health based on what I saw with my setup is to keep the temps up (at least in the 70s, keep the tank as clean as possible, and offer them plenty of veg scraps to hydrate them and provide nutrition. I didn't find those orange cubes to be all that helpful so I ditched those in favor of veg scraps and had good luck. I also used a grain based diet to supplement the veges that they seemed to like. Fluker farms has a similar option called high calcium cricket diet. You can add your own using grains and oats too, they aren't super picky. I guess it boils down to clean, warm, and dry with fresh food available. You'll still see die offs though which is what sent me to start a dubia roach colony after a while.

 

[kingofnobbys]

50 from 1000 is not a bad result.

You will find most mailorder bug suppliers add more bugs to the order to account for losses entransit to the customer (it can take 2 or 3 days and they do get handled roughly.

Keeping the crickets alive is really a matter of a proper temperature and humidity range, hygene (removing stale food esp greens and carrot) and keeping the amount of frass (insect poo) low and removing any obvious sick insects as soon as you see them and not leaving dead insects in the keeper , and obviously providing a means of hydration (I favour carrot pieces) and leafy greens and pellets for them to eat.