Keeping crickets

[TwiAly]

Can someone give the low down and how to keep crickets. I usually just buy my crickets every other day as its just been eaiser for my to do it this way (pet store is like 3 blockes away), but not that my son is almost 5 and we have all kinds of activities going on its just getting to be a pain to go that often. So I would like to only have to go on a cricket run once a week. So I need to know what kind of container to keep them in and what to feed them, things to avoid, water, etc. Any info at all you can give me would be awesome. I only need to keep about 20 med and 15 small for the week so nothing too crazy. Thanks.

[BG]

Get a creeter keeper or a tank with screen and add some egg cartons from the dinner and give them some water crystals gel for water and any cat food and scraps you have they will eat and gut loaded ready for your frogs

[TwiAly]

So there isn't any fruit/veggie scraps that can harm the frogs if the crickets have eaten them?

[nickc]

Ive heard that you should stay away from tomatoes as a food for your crickets. The best foods to use are sweet potatoes, oranges, dandelion, bokchoy, squash.

[BG]

I give my dubia roaches dry cat food watermelon,fruits they love citrus and then i feed them to my frogs gut loaded with nutrients and coat them with calcium with D3 because theres no light used

[Froog]

I live 20 minutes away from the closest pet store and we live up in the mountains so it is a lot of gas money to run down there a lot! I buy crickets (50 at a time) and i but them in a exo terririum i had for my hermit crabs when i was little! I feed them carrots, celery, potatoes, oranges, bread, or technically anything that my family wont eat in the time it goes bad or if they are table scraps.

[Sean C]

I have many tarantulas and have actually come here looking for info on flies =).

Raising Crickets

This is the breeding crickets guide I will be using when I have $ again!
Google Breeding crickets There are quite a few guides out there for this.

I printed out 3 but liked this one the best personally. Seems quite simple.

Goodluck and I hope this helps you!

[LilyPad]

One of my favorite tricks I've learned is to use orange slices for water! Then they get water without drowning and also some vit c in them for the froggies

[Sean C]

Now that I have looked around on this site a bit more, there is also this....

http://www.frogforum.net/care-articl...e-cricket.html

[crevalle]

Keeping roaches (dubia) is much easier. Crickets die-off, drown, and stink.

[Baelari]

I agree, dubias are the best, but it takes a while to get a colony going. Plus, I kind of enjoy watching them skitter around sometimes, though I usually only see the boys out and about. Crickets smell terrible, make too much noise, and die so quickly.

Until I get my colony established, I make weekly cricket runs too. I keep my crickets in one of those plastic Kritter Keepers, and feed them Orange Cube, fish flakes, and a piece of whatever veggie I have lying around. It seems like if I put water in there for them, they all die.

[Frog Mom]

One piece of advice that I appreciated was to put tape over the holes in the cricket keeper near the hinges for the lid flaps and the handles. I have to buy small crickets and I'm sure I'd have escapees if I hadn't done that before I actually put crickets in there.

[heyjude2200]

I was constantly making runs to the pet store for crickets & was a little frustrated at the inconsistency of size--sometimes they would be too big for my red bellies. Now I've started buying them online in large quantities and keeping them in critter keepers--it works great. I put the tubes in instead of egg crates & they hide in the tubes, so I just take a tube out & knock some into a container w/a little calcium in it & dinner is ready! It ends up being a lot less expensive--if the weather is moderate you can ship them 2nd day & the shipping is much more reasonable.