Mass cricket death--help?

[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.