bad crickets = bad food.. habitat question!

[lucky7]

Hi.

My crickets currently live in an old egg container cardbord thing.. A lot have died, I bought 25 and I only see like 6 alive maximum and I have feed him about 5 or so...

Are they dying because I didn't clean out the old egg cardbord container thing? ?

Or are they just dying...

Is it likely that they some how got any of this egg left over "invisible" stuff into their system that my gecko later got from eating them????????


thanks..

 

[GeckoJunkie]

Nope, crickets have a very short life span. More than likely they are just dieing due to age. It might be agood idea from here on though, to place them in a clean container just to keep something like this from coming up again. Better safe than sorry!!

 

[Bodon]

i have the same problem, i have a friend who said he never has any die both have the same set up and we get them from the same pet store so beats me what the problem could be.

 

[liljenn]

Temps, maybe?? I found that mine were dying because the temps in my utility room cabinet were ~68* I've read that they thrive better in 80* temps, esp. the younger ones.

 

[Surf_420]

if they get too hot, too cold, or too humid they will die and stink up the house.

try mealies

 

[Mel&Keith]

We have great success keeping them in giant plastic bins. Since you don't buy that many at a time you could use a kitchen size trash can. Make sure that the sides are smooth enough that they can't crawl up them. If you try to keep a lid on the container you will probably see more die off so tall open containers work best. The second key part is feeding them. We use Cody's Pro Gut Load in dishes for food and potato chunks for moisture. I would recommend Ectotherm Cricket Yummies as an excellent food/water source in one and it's available at chain pet stores. It's by far the best cricket food available in pet stores IMO. Gutloading keeps them alive and helps your geckos get more nutrients. Hope that helps!

 

[Baker14]

Ive noticed my 1000 crickets I get each week or so, alot of them do die pretty rapidly. I was thinking this is because the moisture and humidity in my garage(where I keep them). Before, when I kept them in my room, they didnt die as fast.

 

[Surf_420]

overpopulation in a small container will kill a bunch of quick as well,

i have very large plastic bins that i use for the crickets, i cut out the top of the lid (the whole thing) and replaced it with some very small metal screen.

if you get the plastic screen, they will eat through it and be all in the house.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Crickets only have about a 7-8 max life-span. If you are getting full-sized crickets, they may simply be dying from old age. All the suggestions everyone has already made are accurate... crickets need to be kept warmer than 60 degrees in uncrowded conditions, and kept fed and watered.

 

[blizzard]

i use a rubbermaid plastic container pretty deep decent width. i use the flucker's farm orange cubes. i put a couple of eggs carton pieces in there for hiding. keep at room temp and nothin' seem wrong. leos love them. they will die quick from age. they also kill each other. and too much humidity can be a problem. also make sure you give the crickets time to eat...sometimes the pet store don't feed them just cardboard. so giving them straight to the lizard will mean zero nutrients.

 

[lucky7]

thanks a lot to everyone who answered.!
much needed help........ and good advice,

 

[slytle90]

I just have a huge critter keeper that I keep mine in. I have two little dishes (one that holds food and one that holds the water). I feed them flukers high calcium cricket feed and for the water I use the flukers cricket quencher. I also have a good sized piece of egg crate in there so that they are not climbing all over each other. I will also throw in a small carrot or piece of apple or something like that for extra food and water. I only see a couple dead ones in there by the time I have to buy more. I just keep them at room temperature.

 

[slytle90]

O and I forgot to mention that i have two of these....one for my small crickets and one for my large. I have to tape up most or the vents on the smalls because they somehow are able to get out.