keeping crickets..

[DeesBalls]

My beardie is owning crickets now... like crazyly... lol...

i want to get a bunch, maybe 200? could i keep those in a 10 gal tank, and if i did... would they need heat, they would be in my basement.. just wondering how to go about keeping alot of crickets! thanks

[NennaMeerkat]

Okay so the things you need to remember with crickets is that if things get to humid they can literally drown from the humidity. Crickets breathe through their skin and require a somewhat dry environment to thrive. Egg crates work great for them to hide in without having to be on top of one another. I would suggest putting in some sort of aspen or newspaper bottom that would have to be changed out fairly often. Crickets are stinky critters, especially if you don't clean out things often enough.

Any kind of moist vegetable like carrots, potatoes, cucumber, ect. is good for them to eat where you won't have to worry about a water source. They make this gel stuff for water but I prefer to use the veggies to supply water+food for cheaper. Also crickets are cannibalistic and will eat one another if they aren't the same size or if you don't supply enough food. Usually you can tell if either is going on because they will eat one another's back legs off first. So if you see a lot of back legs missing you probably got some cannibalism going on.

[DeesBalls]

Thanks!! I was going to put egg crates in the tank too, with newspaper bedding. I should of said that. And I have some orange gel stuff for food and water, but I would use cucumbers too!! I get them free from work lol.

[NennaMeerkat]

I personally use decent sized critter carriers to hold my crickets...usually have anywhere from 40 to 100 crickets at any one time. I usually use food that my bearded gets for their food which is squash and mustard greens. Stock up on egg crates! Every time you change out that newspaper gonna need to change out the egg crates as well. And if you can get free cucumbers from work I would suggest just using that than the gel stuff. Personally if the lizards in question wouldn't eat the gel then I wouldn't feed it to the crickets. Fresh cucumber every couple of days is good enough.

[DeesBalls]

What about tomatoes, or onions?. I only ask bc I get those free from work lol.

[NennaMeerkat]

I wouldn't know about onions...and Tomatoes would work though VERY messy! Would have to keep some sort of tupperware or something in the container to keep the juices of the tomato in check. Then you gotta worry about the crickets drowning in the juices of the said contained tomato.

[DeesBalls]

ill just stick with cucumbers lol.

[NennaMeerkat]

Probably a good idea. Besides I think cucumbers are good for Dragons anyways :) If you get tired of cucumber you can always switch to apple, potato, melon, ect.

Plenty of great watery veggies/fruits out there that stay good and moist for a few days.

[DeesBalls]

Thank for all your help!! :)

[NennaMeerkat]

No problem :) Anytime. Used to breed crickets a while back. Was a fun little project but not overly successful. Could keep the adults alive but the babies are hard to deal with. Fragile little buggers.