Cricket Mortality Rate???

[10thumbs]

We feed our leopard gecko large crickets and meal worms that we buy at various pet stores in the area. We normally give him 2-4 crickets one day and 6-10 meal worms the next. Most of the time we'll buy two dozen crickets at a time and 25-35% of them die before we have a chance to offer them to our gecko. Are there any other tricks to keep the crickets alive longer or is does the fact that they are large crickets indicate that they are near the end of their "circle of life"?

We always have Fluckers High Calcium cricket diet in there and we usually offer a bit of lettuce or whatever is left over after dinner. They seem to really like cooked carrots.

We put a "cricket pillow" in with the crickets as a water supply. We just have to remember to resoak it every couple of days. A lot of times when we drop the crickets into the gecko habitat they make a b-line for his water dish. Are some crickets too stupid to take water from the pillow? Or is the pillow just a gimmick that the pet store talked me into?

 

[Adinar]

We usually have a fairly high mortaility rate in the crickets we keep here as well. It just seems to happen with the larger ones though.

And here's a little tip I found online about keeping crickets fed, the cheap way. Get a soda cap or small bowl (depending on how many you have) and soak a few cottan balls in water. Then just place them in said bowl. There's enough in there for them to drink, but not enough for them to drown.

 

[RocksMama77]

I have the same problem. The large ones just die. I use water crystals and they seem to like it and they can't drown. I also just read some where that you can mist them a bit. I think if they get too dry they can die sooner.

 

[BGalloway]

Large ones are pretty near the end of their life span, I try to buy 3/4 size crickets whenever possible because they live longer and aren't much smaller than full size. My trick for reducing mortality is LOTS of egg-crate, the more space the crickets have to get away from each other the better they seem to survive. You can get it for free sometimes at restaurants, places that go through a lot of eggs might give away the big palates for free.

 

[Retribution Reptiles]

Humidity will kill the crickets due to they will drown. I have and maintain thousands of crickets at room temp, CPG, and Water crystals with plenty of egg crates as to provide needed space for the crickets.

The secret to crickets is space. make sure you guys keep alot of space for your crickets.

 

[10thumbs]

Thanks very much for your responses.

I don't get this space issue. Are we suggesting that if they can't hide that the stress is killing them prematurely? It seems to me that there is plenty of space but there is no place for them to really hide. I'll try adding some egg crate. They guy at the pet store usually offers me some but I never take him up on it.

I keep them in a collabsible mesh butterfly garden. Every so often I have to patch it with a little scotch tape but they've never chewed a big enough hole for them to escape. Where do you keep your crickets? (At least those of you who aren't breeding them by the thousands.)

 

[Hannibal]

We keep ours in a large Cricket keeper, usually no more than 48 large crickets at a time. We only use 2 of the black pvc tubes and cycle them out for cleaning. It comes with 4 tubes. This way, I have more room for food. I just had a batch of the small crickets die off suddenly, no idea why. We go through the crickets about every 5 days for our Chameleon, when he is out of them, we clean the keeper with that herp cleaner spray, then wet paper towels, to get any herp cleaner out, then dry.

After the cleaning, I slice up zuchinni or squash, and make cross cuts on the slices to get the juice out and just drop about 6 slices on the floor of the keeper. I also grate up some carrot (very moist) and make 2-3 small mounds and place them on the floor as well. I also add a small dish of the Fluekers jell stuff. Canteloupe slices are good too.

I do not put the black tubes in right away, I want them to eat, not hide. The tubes go in the next day. I think the conditions for the crickets at the pet store are soo poor, they are barely alive when we buy them (no water or food), so depending on how fresh they are to the pet store, each day there takes some life off them.

I also think that small batch of little crickets that suddenly died may have been at the store a while or there may have been left over soap or residew in the container or tubes from when I cleaned it. Hard to tell, but none have died since.

I am considering trying that gut load fro crickets from the makers of CGD. But I think the moist veggies are stil going to be a staple for the crickets. But their enviroment does need cleaning and care.

Hope this helps...H

 

[mutley375]

I keep mine in a large storage tote with a bunch of holes in the lid for air. Early on I lost crickets like crazy, what I found was to keep a "bedding" in the bottom of the tote to help absorb moisture and the amonia from there poo down. I use rabbit food!! Buy it in bulk.
I keep 1-2 thousand at a time but am feeding 30 + leos.