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• Caring for your Crickets 

 
Crickets make noise, so if you keep a few and you like the sound, Great!
If not, you need to keep them out of hearing range, (the garage?) back room, greenhouse or workshop.

Because if they do drive you crazy, you WILL find a place for them, and maybe not the best place, but now you cant hear them little %$##@! LOL.

Toilet paper tubes are one of the best ways to herd, work with and collect your insects, so save your tubes!

Depending on how many crickets you are planning to keep, you need to select a container to house them in, 10 gallon tanks work great for most people (with screen lid ) for 500 or less crickets, use toilet paper roll tubes standing on end in one corner of the tank for more space for the crickets to crawl on and hide in. I recommend using a 10 gallon tank with screened lid because I feel that it is the best set up for your feeder station. The are easy to clean, are just the right size and last forever, well almost.

I use toilet paper tubes standing on end grouped together in one corner of the tank away from the food and water. Then when I need crickets I just put my collection jar next to the tubes, grab a tube shake it off into the jar put it back grab another tube .......etc.

If you can find them, cardboard egg flats from restaurants work well as a hiding place and more room for a larger number of crickets.

You want to keep the container for the crickets DRY AND VENTILATED!

If the container gets wet it will stink.

It will attract mites.

It will get mold.

And it will be a good place for bacteria to grow.


SO! A good setup for your feeder station should have the following;


A 10 gallon tank with screen lid.

Paper tubes or egg flats torn in half.

NO substrate or bedding of any kind (they don't need it and its just a mess). they'll stay in the tubes.

A slice of orange for water.

Keep them warm 70 to 80 Degrees F. Is perfect, too much lower or higher and you start to have problems.

When placing the food and orange in the feeder station just place it in the far end away from the tubes don't use a dish for the food sprinkle it on the floor of the tank and then set the orange slice next to that.

I feel that I have had A 100% SUCCESS With this setup.

NOTE; Notice the tape In the corners of the tank ?

Feed them romaine lettuce and cricket chow. (You can also use worm chow that you can get from the feed store)


If you go to a feed store ( you know, the place were they sell chicken feed, horse feed etc.) you can buy what is called Worm Chow for growing worms for fishing it comes in 50 pound bags, maybe you can get the store to get you a smaller amount, but its one of the best diets for your crickets.


For a source of protein use fish flakes or cheap dry cat food (the brown kind no colors). you place the tubes on end on one end of the tank and use the other end for the food and water, this keeps things in order and makes periodic clean up much easier. I have found that a plastic spatula is a very good tool for cleanup!


THE FEED OFF JAR

Your feed off jar or jars depending on how many sizes of insects you are using should be big enough to hold as many crickets as needed for the next day, place fish flakes, gut load ,and a piece of romaine lettuce in the jar, leave it over night, in the morning the crickets will be FULL of good food for your pets


If you have Panther Chameleons a good way to get more vitamin A to them is to use grated carrots in the jar for water.

Oh, how do crickets make noise? They are rubbing there wings together, not there legs...................hey, someone asked !

Donald Dunham is a life time activist for Mother Earth , has studied insects since childhood , and has performed all his own research in the field and in his ( bug lab ).

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