Basic Cricket Caresheet

Feed a mixture of fresh fruits and veggies. Dry dog food may be used as well.

Crickets are skilled drowners, so use "water crystals" or lots of wet food to provide moisture.

To prevent cannibalism, offer LOTS of hiding places -- several layers of egg cartons are ideal for this.

If you plan on breeding crickets, provide a layer of humid substrate such as coco fiber or peat. Females lay their eggs in the ground and the eggs require moisture to develop.

As with roaches, warmer = speedier development.

What about gut loading them on fish food and baby rice cereal?

That should work fine as long as it's nutritionally complete. Fruits and veggies have lots of vitamins and such, so it results in healthy Ts and scorps.

hiya all

can i ask how long do crickets normally last i just keep them in the tub they come in and last me about a week i put gel in for them and fruit nd veg but still cant get them to last much longer any advice would be appreciated.
cheers all

I've seen adults last up to a month if there are plenty of hiding spaces (such as stacked egg cartons in a large tank) and plenty of moist food. In a tub with no (or limited) hides, even with food, they usually die pretty quick.

sorry to post on such an OLD topic but ive come to find out that they really love cherrios.

anemiaffx wrote:

sorry to post on such an OLD topic but ive come to find out that they really love cherrios.

probably like the sugar in it, most insects are attracted to sugar arent they?

Oh lordy... I think half my crickets drowned just from the humidity in their container.
I heard you guys saying how easily they drowned, but I didn't realize it was THAT bad!

I guess next time I'll try not even using a sponge for water.. They can probably get enough water from the veggies and fruits I feed them, yeah?

It takes standing water for them to drown. They probably died from unrelated reasons.

No, they actually drowned... Granted, the container was pretty small and that one sponge made it shockingly humid after a few days And then there were water droplets on the sides.

I would take pictures of their drowned corpses, due to the tragic hilarity of it.. but I still have no camera.
Anyways, poor crickets... next time I will know better.

Yup, they can drown in just a few droplets of water. I just stick to roaches now.
You can use water crystals as their water source. It's basically a jello like substance that absorbs water. Or you can do what you said and feed them veggies for water. And if that doesn't work, switch over to roaches, everyone's doing it

my crickets keep dying/killing eachother >.<
i have three layers of egg carton
however im not sure if they are supposed to be one ontop of the eather so i made them slanted
figured crickets couldnt get intot he small space

i offer them two squares of fluckers orange square cricket food for 6 adult crickets every 5 days

i end up losing 2-4 of my crickets before i can feed them to my Scorpion >.<

how many crickets do i need to start a colony?

I'm not sure on this because I haven't intentionally started a cricket colony. All I know is if you give them moist substrate, they start pumping out eggs and babies start popping out of the ground lol. It also depends on how many pets you need to feed and how long you're willing to wait for the colony to establish itself. Crickets breed pretty easily though, the hard part is waiting for those little babies to grow up.

is it worth starting a colony for two emperor scorpions?

Vin Diesel wrote:

is it worth starting a colony for two emperor scorpions?

Probably not. Atleast I wouldn't, it's just too much hassle IMO. I have just started a Mealworm colony, it's much easier and a good "backup" if I ever run out of crickets (but obviously not the best for a regular feeder).