EEEWWWWW!Bugs in the cricket container!!

[Jace]

I find the older crickets easier to keep clean than the pinheads. Because of their small size, any efforts to clean them usually mean squished, sucked or flattened crickets. Rather frustrating. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

[Ribbitmethis]

What I do for crickets is separate their eating and hiding area so that the egg cartons don't get wet. I leave leftover scraps of whatever vegetables I ate that day, and replace the cricket gel often. I don't know if what I do would work for larger collections, but I generally only lose about 1/5 of my crickets as I only buy enough for 1-1/2 weeks at a time and completely sterilize their cage between batches. I try to pick the largest crickets when pulling out what to feed Merc (he's fed in his own cage, as I've come to notice he'll hunt down all crickets as soon as his cage door is shut) which keeps loss from age and food competition down.

[charlamanda]

WOW! Thanks for all the info this is great! I clean my cricket cont. every week and do spot cleanup every other day. I change the wet pt every couple of days and the pt and tp rolls too Once all the crickets are used up. I only buy 2 dozen, but the shop owner gives me about 40-50, still about 15-25 always die. I am using the small guys, 1/4"-1/2" a few are larger, and my froglets are eating about 30+ at a feeding now. I was thinking of getting larger ones, but with at least 1/2 just managing these I'm going to wait.
Whoa! do they stink, compared to the frogs that are eating them, I think the frogs are wearing deodorant! I cleaned out the 33 gal yesterday too, I took them all out and into the dining room, so I could check on them and make sure that they are all eating, boy are they!!!( I've been using the cricket bowls for a week or two now) The tank was..really clean all things considered and I recaptured 2 rouge crickets that met their end in the dining room!!LOL I know I really sound maniacal. My guys are really lazy and tend not to roam around the bottom and hunt....LOL.They are going to the bottom where I put the bowls and just waiting and wondering, thinking " I know this is where I was yesterday when I ate those crickets, Where did they go? I must be loosing it!!!"
When I put the bowls in they get down in the dirt and "bang" into side of the glass, over and over and over again..are they really this stupid or have my guys, from banging their heads so frequently, become brain damaged!!! I worry they are going to hurt themselves,( I watched them do this with the glass on the hood, when they tried to get into the light fixture) so I go in and put them into the bowl. You won't believe this but, they jump back out, in the dirt, and start all over again! If I help them several times they jump to the other bowl!! It can really be frustration with these little guys.
*Does anybody else's frogs do this too, or are mine really having some issues?
I don't like "pest" insects, but there are many I do actually like. A few weeks ago I took home a Praying mantus and a katydid from Walmart. I even allow many spiders to live above a few lights in the house, but only if they are catching bugs, otherwise I evict them. I have these raquets that are bug zappers and I have a strict "no kill" policy for moths, ladybugs, katydids, spiders, dragon flies, big beetles(other than Japanese) and a few others, but mosquitoes, gnats, flys,(basically any small flying bugs) and these really big(3-4") bugs that look like dragonflies,(I call the flappy bugs) completely wig me out, I've never seen them before I moved here, come to think of it, there are a lot of bugs I've never seen until I moved here, it's all the water and swamps around the end of my cul-de-sac, YUCK!!!!
Thanks for the article Paul, lots of great info!!

[IgbyKibbits]

Yes, great article Paul!

We always use "Kricket Quencher" for our water supply. It's just been easier to keep the overall container clean/dry.

We lose crickets, but yes, a lot less than before the Kricket Quencher.