Cricket caterpillars?

Quick and simple.

Why on earth is there a bunch of caterpillars in the tub with my crickets?

Can they be fed to my scorps?

And, are they going to eat the rest of my crickets?

Hi mate, I read (quite a while ago though) that the livefood breeders use them to keep things clean in a similar way to isopods and you'll always have them in your crickets. How true this is I don't know.

lol i always wondered what those thigs are ...my sister feeds them to her frogs + newts when she gets them in the tubs of crickets, they freak me out lol so i just leave them in there to rot

well ive just done a little search and they are they're beetle larvae and can be a pest with regards to crickets also if consumed they can cause parasites
They are the larvae of Hide beetles, and they get in as a pest from the breeders. They can devastate breeders stock. Many people believe they are put in to eat the dead crickets but not so.

so no i wouldnt feed them

Ah maybe I was wrong lol

Those beetles are so annoying! Whenever you open the tub they hatch a plan to climb to the highest point and fly out

Yeah mine get left in there.

Eurgh, creepy little things.

I should probably remove them before I end up with a tub full of flying beetles.

from what i read they eat the crickets too so prob best to remove them..no wonder i end up with half a tub dead lol

That would explain why they're rapidly disappearing.

I have enough problems with the crickets eating eachother I don't need little fuzzy larvae adding to the problem.

This is the last time I buy crickets, I'm switching back to locusts.

Roaches FTW

JamieLawrence wrote:

Roaches FTW

+1

I would use roaches I just don't know anywhere around here that sells them. They're rare around these parts, the main feeders are locusts, worms and crickets.

We don't see roaches round here either so have never used then as yet

Hahaha look why I just found 5 of in our brown crickets!!! Not fuzzy little freaks now!! And they fly too!!

This site seems ok, haven't used them personally though. I got my starter colony at SEAS but yeah I haven't seen them in any pet shops around here. I don't think it's worth buying them just as feeders but starting a colony is great.

Roachcolony.co.uk

Yep they're the escape artist beetles! Come to think of it they probably are a pest to live food as when I order my crickets in bulk from the net (beardies get through alot) from a good place they don't have any fuzzy things. But when I get them from the pet shop they do.

That thing is hideous. It's like the darkling beetle's evil twin brother. Too late for removing mine though. I have three crickets left and about fifty thousand of those grubs.

And I'll definitely be looking into that site Jamie, one hundred small roaches for ten quid sound very reasonable.

Jamie do roaches make noise or anything?? Like I said we have never used them are they suitable for all scorps ( can u get small ones?) would like to be self sufuciant with feeders but dunno if I have the space really, will have to look up iitamadochi1 roach post I think too

Only noise I get is scurrying around, they don't actually make a noise as such like cricket. Also they have no foul smell like those stinky crickets. They love the dark so no worries just keeping them hid away.

They're useless at climbing smooth side's so no escapee's. Even if one did escape they're a tropical species of roach and wouldn't live long, they like it abit warmer. They've got just as big of a size scale as crickets but get alot bigger though. A female can give birth to about 40 live babies and they're tiny. In a couple of hours these tiny roaches are integrated into the rest of the colony, perfect for your tiniest scorps right up to the largest (except when something as small as pin heads are needed).

You could easily be self sufficient just feeding scorps because you won't get through them but because of my beardies and sals I still have to order crickets in bulk ATM.

100 small for a tenner sound's ok but it would take quite a while for the colony to get started. I'd go for a mixture of adults and some smaller. They even do a taster pack to see if breeding them is right for you. Can't say fairer than that.

Roachcolony taster pack

They're also easy to feed and keep healthy and I also don't think they can bite like crix. Yes I remember some very good post from Shaun about Dubia roaches that need digging up.

Bex: Roaches don't chirp or anything like crickets, but they do make those crinkling noises on egg crates and stuff when they move around. I personally like Blatta lateralis roaches because they get to be a little larger than crickets, but are not overly bulky with a thick shell like B. dubia. B. lateralis are soft, active, and not burrowers. Just keep in mind that B. dubia burrow any chance they get and they don't move around often either.

Good point's, I usually either send them in the direction of the scorp or send them down the burrow. Can't seem to find any B. lateralis for sale over here.

Awesome thanx for all the info guys! will def be looking at gettin a starter pack then and give it a go, I hate the smell of crickets makes me heave and it's not nice as we have all our scorps an feeders in the dinning room lol right next to the pc, another thing do scorps struggle will the shells they look so tough to me and ours tend to lot like the large black crickets coz they are slightly tougher than the brown and am always finding left over bits and locusts legs ( locust legs are understandable though I guess lol)

I don't think they have a problem aslong as the roach is appropriately sized and if you want to see abit of a scrap then use abit bigger one, seems to bring out the beast in a scorp.

So what do you keep your roaches in? and what stuff do you put in with them? is it just egg boxes and wood shavings?

I don't have time to dig right now so if you find the thread post a link to it here or post something on it so I get an email notification. I'd like to see it and I can add anything that may be helpful to it as some time has passed and I have been successfully keeping Blaptica Dubia (Argentinian Wood Cockroach and arguable the most preferred feeder) and Fromphadorhina Portentosa (Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches).

I have just started feeding scorps off of my Dubias though as I am wanting to the colony to boom and be total'y self sufficient. I actually started feeding scorplings nymphs when I ran out of small crickets. No problems there.

For the record I believe Lobster Roaches are another good feeder, I don't have any experience with those though.

My Hissers, or should I say my son's hissers aren't for feeding anything of mine. I have feed my neighbors bearded dragons with them for the past year though. They were eating crickets and I guess after the 1st two feedings the demeanor completely changed and they are a lot more lively and seemingly happy! So I gave the neighbors one heck of a good starter colony! I got the colony for free so what the heck (I hope they breed their Honduran Milk Snakes!)

I can't seem to find that thread. I've only had mine going since the show so I'm still a noob but I believe all they need are some egg cartons in a big smooth sided container, no substrate as such but they do seem to eventually make their own substrate with shed skins lol

Found this on that Roachcolony.co.uk site, looks quite good for info.
Dubia Roach Care Guide

Yes you want to leave some of the fecal matter as the babies will eat it, but you won't want to much or the non stinking benefit of roaches gets defeated.

I got a bunch of ideas from watching Tarantulaguy1976 on youtube. That is RobC and I think his site may be robc.arachnoboards.com or something. He is great, very enthusiastic and very experienced. I just got an email response from him today on youtube with some back drops I made after watching another of his tutorials. Look through his vids or search for Blaptica Dubia on youtube, that is how I found him. I can see if I can put something together to, it just won't happen before next week unfortunately. I recently posted my flicker account in a thread and you may see some pics on there. Off hand it might be flickr.com/iitomodachi1 or something. Depending on the type of roach you get there are some tricks. Some climb smooth surfaces and some do not. That is another perk to Dubia's they do not Hisser do so you have to lube the top inside edge of the bin.

Good luck and definitely check out RobC's vids, the guy is great and you will find everything you need to know from his few tutorials. He has some older ones up so ignore anything with dividers and stuff, it moves away from that.

I'm feeding tonight so I'll take pictures again and will get some shots to post up on here of the roach bins

Ok I did it, but I started a new thread and it's in the tutorials section or hit this link... https://scorpionforum.darkbb.com/t5952-blaptica-dubia-tub-set-up#69499