No touching crickets for me!

[nellie]

Buying crickets from the pet store is getting way too expensive so I plan to buy crickets in bulk for my leopard geckos tomorrow. But I have one problem:
I hate them and I don't want to have to stick my hand in a tank full of creapy crawlies.
I know I'm a wimp, but it totally freaks me out having a million crickets jumping all over my hands and escaping into my house.
Does anyone have any suggestions how I can keep crickets in bulk without having to touch them? Is there any type of container that would allow me to just shake a few into the gecko cages?
Thanks,
Nellie

[The_Omen]

NP!
We keep the egg crate cardboard in with our crix, just grab a piece or two and shake the crix off in a tote.

There are afetmarket crix carriers that have an extraction tube, but have never tried any of them.

[Dark_Angel_x322]

You can also try rubber gloves with the egg cartons so they never actually touch your hand... I usually rinse them with water before using them though so no weird chemicals get on the crickets.

Does anyone know how to keep 3week crickets without them escaping? I use a small critter cage for them now but they can get out of the holes in the top... my mom isn't too happy with me right now cuz of it.

[reptilez]

My friend puts tape on the inside of the lid over the areas where there getting out and may leave 2-4 spaces for air.

[matt_winter]

Yes there is a way. They have these things at pet stores and im pretty sure that they had them at the reptile show. Anyway its this container with these 2 black tubes, what you do is once the crickets crawl up the tubes, you take it out and shake them into there cage.

[nellie]

Thanks! You guys are great!!!
Or maybe it would be a good time to overcome my fear of crickets???

[MartinW]

I'm working on overcoming my fear of spiders. I don't mind big ones like tarantulas, but I hate the smaller ones with those long skinny legs! They freak me out! Whenever I see one I try really hard to pick it up. It's hard though.

[leolover]

get one of those camera film cases and scoop them up and dump them into the cage.it goes real fast and i have never had a cricket get out on me that way.

[fanmaninacan]

I hate it when ppl say this!

U get a herp that only eats "bugs" n u can touch it....

it doesent make sence to me..

Not to offend u but....THERE CRICKETS!!!!! come ON!!.lol
T.P

[nellie]

Wow fanmaninacan that was extremely rude!
I have had my leos for 4 months and I haven't starved them yet!
As my mother always said: "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all!" I was asking for some advice. If you don't have any, don't reply. Thanks.

For the rest of you who replied with some sense, Thanks! The rubber gloves worked like a charm (except of course when one cricket got on my shirt ~ I'll spare you the freak out!)! I even transfered all my crickets from one aquarium to another all by my self for cleaning!
Thanks again!
~Nellie

[fanmaninacan]

Hey,

Sorry, Mybad
i was in a bad mood at the time...IM SORRY
But u r gonna hve to get used to the crickets some time :)

T.P

[Pixie]

Nellie: I SO understand where you're coming from, I too am petrified of crickets and can't stand them. I rarely feed them to my critters, only when absolutely necessary. My geckos get mealworms, silkworms, butterworms and waxworms and an occasional pinky. With a good variety of worms like that, I've been able to avoid giving crickets to my geckos alltogether. There are only my tarantulas that will get crickets once in a while and I get the shop to prepare a dozen split into two bags so I just have to cut one corner and dump them into the tarantula terrariums.

fanmaninacan: It's nice to see you apologize as your earlier post in this thread was in fact quite rude. Phobias are irrational fears and I can understand how silly it sounds, I get it all the time! "You have tarantulas and lizards but you're afraid of crickets!!! LOL" Geez, it even sounds silly to me when I say it! But I can assure you that my fear is very real! I can't understand the fear of snakes at all but it is very common and real so I don't push people as I wouldn't want someone to push a cricket on me!

Pixie

[CDN-Cresties]

Hey Nellie, you'll get over your fear, just keep working at it. I once bought 2 dozen large crickets at the pet store and i didnt bother taking them out of the plastic bag that they give you. Well needless to say when i got home that night, i saw something crawl under the rug, sure enough they chewed their way through the bag and were running all over my house!!! I thought my mom was going to kill me but she was cool withit. She even helped me catch a couple and she had a fear of crickets herself. I remember once that she woke me up in the morning and said i caught 5 crickets and i put them in your plastic container. lol

Sorry for ramabling on, i thought it was a funny story to tell :D if my mom got over the fear Nellie, im sure you can to!!! :)


-Steve-

[Lisa]

I too have an irrational fear of all inverts (though i have no problem eating escargo, lobster, crab and clams). I usually just dump them in to our toad's critter keeper and make sure there's food for the bugs.

[nellie]

Wow fanmaninacan that was extremely rude! I have had my leos for over 4 months and I have yet to starve them. As my mom always said, "if you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all!" I posted because I was looking for some advice or suggestions. If you don't any helpful suggestions and only smart a$$ comments, Don't Reply!

For the rest of you who answered with some sense:
Thank you so much for your suggestions. Using rubber gloves worked like a charm! I even transfered all of the crickets from one aquarium to another for cleaning by myself!
Thanks again!
~Nellie

[meluvstgr]

Don't feel bad, Nellie. When I got my savannah monitor, I was looking at this bag of crickets like...! Ok, how am I gonna do this?

But I got mad at myself for getting all worked up so I just crammed my hand in there and grabbed a couple. Since then, no problems. Except that they are sneaky little bastards. They try to climb up your arm!

I have mine in a critter keeper that I got from the pet store. Works great. I just plunk some gut load in there whenever they are out, and they do just fine. Til Mikey eats them, of course!

[nellie]

Fanmaninacan ~
Thanks for your apology! I appreciate it!
I too have to say I'm sorry. I posted my first nasty message back and it didn't show up. So on Sunday, I reposted. (I have this way of needing to get my point across! :) ) I now see that the first did infact show up ~ so my 2nd post came in a day after your apology! I'm a big dummy!

I am slowly getting over my cricket issues. I don't feel all squirmy when I look at the aquarium anymore if that means anything! :)

I do have another question:
It seems that a lot of my crickets are dying off. I bought 500 just last week and I would be surprized if there are 100 left. I have egg cartons, food substrate (oats, fish food, Cherios, dry milk, etc), & a slice of orange in the cage. When I cleaned the cage a couple of days ago (there were sooo many dead ones, I had to clean it out), I noticed that quite a few of them had something wrong with their back legs. It almost looked like their legs didn't work????? Anyone ever seen this?

Thanks~
Nellie

[HeatherRose]

Having crickets and mealies in my room constantly helped me get over any 'bug fear' I had....I still don't like the big crickets, the little guys are cuter...:D Just wait until they escape in your room, and you have to hunt them all down and put them back :|

Not that that has to happen!

I feed my crickets the store bought cricket feed (although whatever dry food you're using is good too) but I don't think citrus fruit is a good idea....I might be mistaken though.

I use carrots or apples, and I can buy 2/3 inch crickets and have them live until maturity....

I try to only buy as much as I need though, I don't know what you keep, but do you need 500 at a time? It's really expensive to pay for 500 and only have 100 left :(

I don't know what to say about the cricket legs....I de-leg mine anyway.....(that also helped me get over any icky bug fear :P )

Hope I helped :)

[nellie]

Hmmm....I swore I read somewhere to add a slice of orange. Maybe it was apple. Great, I'm probably killing to stupid things! :)
I bought 500 at a show for only $6 or somthing (they're like $1 / dozen at my petstore!) and I was going to try to breed them myself. Pretty funny since I don't want to touch them, huh?
Heather ~ if I had crickets running all over my house, I think I might move out. I wouldn't be able to sleep here anymore! :)

~N

[HeatherRose]

I can't be too sure about the orange.....I know some people on here use it as a sourse of moisture, but I remember reading somewhere NO CITRUS FRUITS in big scary letters....anything like potato, apple or even carrots give lots of moisture and are a nice source of water....sponges work too...

I like carrots, because apples get mushy fast.

LoL, even if you don't like them, breeding them still saves you the trip to the petsore :P I wish I could, but they make too much noise.

I don't mind loose crickets that much, I just can't figure out how they get out :P My cat usually finds them first anyway, so problem solved :D

[Siretsap]

Lolol, give it to Mikey, he eats anything. Remember that commercial? Of life cerials was it?