Mass cricket death--help?

[AmberPye]

In July I got a White's Tree Frog. He's been great! But the crickets keep dying.

First I had them in a Kritter Keeper (With the tubes?) and I stuffed 30 in there with little egg carton. Told that was bad, they'd eat each other. Got a second Keeper, started filling them with egg carton. Crickets stopped eating each other, I had two batches of 30 that lived long enough to be eaten (About 2 weeks?)

Then I had several batches die in quick succession. I mean, I bought them, put them in the cleaned keepers with new carton and food, and they were all dead within 2 days. Well, except what Freckle ate. These were different sizes and from a few different stores, local ones and a Petsmart. I finally got one of the pre-packaged tubs of small/medium crickets from Petsmart and kept them in the tub, and they lasted about what I thought they should (About 2 weeks. Freckle ate most of them)

I bought a batch of 50 from a different local pet store, divided them between the two keepers... And they died.

I threw the keepers out, bought a new keeper (A large Marina keeper) and bought a new batch of crickets. They lived! I lost less than a dozen of 50 in about 3 weeks.

Got new crickets from the same place two days ago... They're all dead. Every single one of them is dead.

I keep having to run around everywhere just to get Freckle fresh food, because he's not interested in pre-killed crickets (Or worms, or anything but live, jumpin' crickets, or I'd be doing that.)

More specs:

- Fluker's cricket water since day 1
- All the Kricket Keeper batches were fed a variable vegetable diet
- Last batch of Kricket Keeper crickets were fed a bit of cubed iguana food
- Tub crickets were never fed (Came with food)
- First batch of Marina crickets were fed variable vegetables, fish flakes, and Fluker's cricket food
- Never got around to feeding second batch their veggies/fish flakes, but they ate the Fluker's the second they dropped in
- Kept on a shelf in the hallway
- Not harassed by other animals
- Crickets die laying on their backs, twitching. This has happened to every single one.

[badkelpie]

A few possibilities off the top of my head.

1. Flukers cricket water, maybe you got a bad batch. Try giving plain water in a bottle cap with a cotton ball.
2. Vegetables with pesticide residue? I don't know, but maybe try just organic carrots.
3. Something toxic being used to clean the critter keepers. Hot water and vinegar, rinse well.
4. Crickets suck :-P I know this doesn't help, but seems to be true.

Good ventilation is key. I don't know what else to suggest.

If you weren't in Canada, I'd say switch to roaches, but you can't.

[Tammy McLaughlin]

A few possibilities off the top of my head.

1. Flukers cricket water, maybe you got a bad batch. Try giving plain water in a bottle cap with a cotton ball.
2. Vegetables with pesticide residue? I don't know, but maybe try just organic carrots.
3. Something toxic being used to clean the critter keepers. Hot water and vinegar, rinse well.
4. Crickets suck :-P I know this doesn't help, but seems to be true.

Good ventilation is key. I don't know what else to suggest.

If you weren't in Canada, I'd say switch to roaches, but you can't.

I breed cricket for my Pacific Chorus frogs.
I keep a 10 gl and a 20 gl tanks for the crickets. I have about 1,000 right now. What I do not use for breeding I give to the frogs and chickens.
For water I have well water ( if you have city water go get bottled water) I use a paper towel in a butter dish and change and wash the dish every other day.
They need to be warm. Above 70. Ideal temp is 78-80 I use a light bulb about 45 watts on the lid. If they get to cold they die. You have to have good ventilation.
For food I grind up dog food, no salt crackers and oatmeal. I also give organic vegges.
Hope this helps.

[AmberPye]

Hey, thanks for the quick replies guys. All I can find on this is Cricket Paralysis Virus--how likely is this the thing? I checked the poor dead buggers this morning and some are still lying on their backs, twitching pitifully. I feel so bad for 'em.

BadKelpie:

1. But I did have several batches that ate the Fluker's water and were fine? I had at least 5, I may have had a couple more (I do sometimes add small new batches to half-eaten old batches)
2. Not every batch has eaten veggies. I thought that, so I fed a batch an organic baby carrot and a cracker, and another batch got cubed iguana food (Smelled divine, I don't even know if they touched it. Little green, wet cubes.) The last batch in the new keeper ate parsley, baby spinach, fish flakes, and Fluker's cricket food. Very few deaths.
3. I wipe down the keepers with warm water in which the frog's water cleaner has been added. So, no chemicals. I want to bleach the damn thing today, but I'm afraid the next batch of crickets will croak from that.
4. I know. Crickets do suck. I looked up the dubia roaches and got mad I couldn't get them in Canada. They look like a much better and more healthy alternative for Freckle. We're gonna try some worms tonight, he had a breakthrough and ate 5 crickets from tweezers last night.

Tammy McLaughlin:

The one thing that caught me was the temperature. Could twitching be a symptom of cold-related death? They're taking a long time to die. But apparently I have a little contingent (About 5/6 left, now that Freckle's had his fill) of crickets that are surviving. We keep our house relatively cold. As in, the heat isn't on at all right now. It's morning, probably about 65* fahrenheit. It may drop to 60* fahrenheit overnight, but doesn't get over 71* fahrenheit anymore. When we get the heat going when it snows, we'll be looking at similar temperatures, but with less of a drop.

Should the crickets have a heating pad? I hadn't even considered that they might need more warmth than the ambient temperature could provide.

[billybatz9]

Dead crickets will kill the live crickets (the smell and humidity dead crickets cause)
Too much humidity will kill them. Make sure you keep them somewhere dry
Too cold and they will die. Make sure you keep them somewhere warm.
Different size crickets will not be good. Big ones will eat the small ones.
Make sure you have lots of climbing things (paper rolls or egg crate) or they will step all over one another and kill each other.
Make sure you always have fresh food and some sort of hydration.

Heres a pretty good care guide. Cricket Care

[AmberPye]

BillyBatz9:

That's all great, and what I'm already doing. Well, except the cold, it didn't occur to me.

This is mass death. At least 90% of my crickets just up and died... Ish. Some of them are still twitching. I'm trying to see if some heat can revive them, but so far, no go.

[Tammy McLaughlin]

I had the same problem, crickets turning a darker color, laying on there backs ect. UNTIL I started to use the light bulb and if the room got to cold I used a heater in that room. 80 degrees is not even hot for them...They love the heat. One thing. Take the dying and dead out asap, they produce (release)a chemical and you will lose more. For my breeding tanks that raise the egg into babies I use a heating pad underneath with lights and room heater.

[AmberPye]

Okay, I put a heating pad on, cleared the dead out (And shot some video of the not-quite-dead twitching) and put a new batch of 10 large in with the surviving 10 large.

Annnd they're dead. There are 4 survivors. The tank is being kept warmer than my frog is. All the new ones are doing the same twitching, lying-on-their-back dance.

LUCKILY I got Freckle to eat some waxworms last night from tweezers, so we're making some progress. I may have to give up and just buy the disposable 24 packs of crickets in bulk, and try to get him mostly eating worms. Are there any roaches other than dubia (Or rather, that are legal in Canada) that could replace my crickets?

Oh, and to address the question of removing the dead: I don't get a chance. I'm not going to wake up halfway through the night to check the crickets and clean the dead. They're literally dying en masse 6-8 hours after they're put in the habitat. I go to bed with hoppers, and wake up to twitchers and death.

[MatthewM1]

I would highly recommend NOT employing any 'fur balls'.
They are useless ! But sweet ( that's Chewie and Cubby ....my boys... )

I disagree, fur balls make excellent cricket wranglers and quickly do away with escapees, pretty useful Imo

Sent from my LG-P930 using Tapatalk 2

[Ash]

Hello,guys all the members have given really good advice. As I do a larger scale cricket breeding I want to add a few things. From talking to and observing the practices of large scale cricket producers, and the knowledge of how they are sometimes packed -shipped and fed/underfed, sometimes sitting in hot trucks for extended time). There are some concerns.

Large scale farmers of crickets feed the crickets a cheap corn based meal with added vitamins that will grow and sustain a cricket yet are not as nutritious as a healthy All Natural Diet including fresh fruits and veggies (they simply cannot do this as fruit and veggies must be removed before rotting) These crickets (Can) be suffering from a sort of subclinical malnutrition as well as dehydration when you get them. So hydrate them as soon as you get them and feed them high quality vegetation several times a week in addition to any other grain based chow or the nutrition you may buy from your supplier. When I used to go to my local pet-stores to buy crickets that cost too much they also died too soon. When i would look in the store's bins I never saw adequate water or nutrition and crickets would be dead sometimes before I even made in home.

There of course are some suppliers that do not have these problems but you may find like I did that it is variable with each batch of crickets and you may have to experiment with different suppliers until you find the "ONE". When I went to ordering online I had better luck than at the local pet shops and Pet Superstores but still had to deal with the lack of nutrition and possible virus activity. To sum up follow the constructive advice already given, find a small supplier of feeder crickets that feeds a varied nutrition (preferably supplementing with fresh produce) Hydrate your crickets quickly upon receiving and feed them produce in addition to their diet and try raising your own if you have that proclivity.

[maxQ]

I have not been successful in breeding crickets, I have tried it a few times BUT, Chewie and Cubby are doing an excellent job helping.

[Ash]

One thing I meant to mention in my above post on acquiring and keeping crickets that "don't die too soon" is to be careful with used egg flats and cartons as they can harbor salmonella and coccidia and other undesirable pathogen. If you must re-use them then find a way to make them a bit more sterile like low temp- baking them or microwaving.

[Strider18]

It sounds like you do the same thing that I do for my frog... I just buy it from the petstore, keep the crickets in the same bag, give them a moist paper towel and then give them some flukers cricket food and I usualy only lose 2-5 of the 15 crickets I get. Not sure why yours are dieing but I agree with everyone else, you should switch from the flukers and go to moist cottonball/paper towel. Oh and whenever I put them into a different container they just die.