Keeping Crickets Alive - Deep Dive!
Many people struggle to keep their crickets alive once they bring them home. It can save you money to set up an environment where your crickets can not only survive but thrive! Generally, when you purchase in larger quantities, the price per cricket is less. Here are some helpful tips for keeping your crickets healthy and happy until your next purchase of feeders.
The number one thing you can do to keep your crickets alive longer is to buy the Banded Cricket instead of the Domestic cricket, which is the dominant cricket sold in most chain pet stores. Domestic crickets (Acheta Domesticus) has an average lifespan of 50-60 days. The Banded Cricket (Gryllodes Sigillatus) has an average lifespan of 90-110 days.
By purchasing the longer-living cricket, you have already extended the amount of time you have before the cricket dies. This is especially important if you need adult crickets. By the time the Domestic cricket is an adult it is already 35 days old. These crickets are shipped from the producer to a distributor, then from the distributor to the pet store. If each leg of the trip takes 3-5 days, you are buying a cricket with 5-9 days left and we aren't even considering how long they've been at the pet store. Shipping also causes stress and this can reduce the lifespan significantly.
There are a few other crickets you may come across on the market and those are the Jamaican cricket (Gryllus Assimilus) and I have seen some farms listing these as Banded Crickets. They are not. Although they do have a longer lifespan than the Domestic cricket, they have a high chitin content making them harder to digest. I do not have experience with a reptile that is "compacted" but I have heard many stories of this happening. I do know, that the longer it takes any animal to digest anything, the longer that animal is going to feel "full". This means that an animal with a belly full of undigested chitin may not have an appetite to eat the other foods that may be necessary for them to get all the nutrients that they need.
Space and Airflow - most common issue!
Crickets need space, they also need to be able to have good airflow for several reasons. one being that banded crickets contain a lot of moisture in their bodies, too many in close quarters can cause the container to become too humid for their comfort and health. The second reason is because crickets have a natural healthy bacteria on their bodies much like we do, which is normally a good thing. Too many crickets in too small a space results in an over-production of this bacteria leading to a denzovirus outbreak. This virus is spread very easily once it has taken hold and will significantly limit the life of your crickets. Usually die off occurs after crickets pass the 1/2" mark and the virus is distinct in it's sweet and putrid smell. You think dead crickets smell bad, but dead and dying crickets with the denzovirus otherwise known as the Cricket Paralysis Virus is a whole other level of disgusting.
Cannibalism: Banded crickets do not cannabalize other banded crickets unless one of three things is happening: 1. The cricket they are eating is dead, actively dying, or has an injury they will not survive. or 2. The crickets are too crowded so they are attempting to reduce the population for their own survival. 3. They do not have easy access too food and or water.
For some time, I did not believe that banded crickets would ever cannibalize each other, because I had never seen it happen. After observing some crickets packed for a show that were really crowded in a 32oz cup, I witnessed the aggression and the chomping of their fellow crickets. This makes sense to me because when a cricket dies, the decaying body releases a potent ammonia that will asphyxiate the rest of the crickets in the area. As well as your crickets are cared for, they can get squished fairly easily resulting in death. So regardless of the space they have it is important to have good ventilation and also to clean any dead crickets out on a regular basis. A hint that you have an issue is seeing all of your crickets up at the top of the egg flats. They're either trying to get warm, get cool, or get a breath of fresh air if you see that happen.
Size 1 Gallons of space per
Adults 30
1/2" or Medium 75
1/4 or Small 150
I'm going to let you noodle out the in-between sizes based on the info above.
Remember, there need to be other things inside your container too, so the space that's for the crickets is where you measure the gallons.
An important part of space and airflow is your vents. Sometimes it's okay to just have no lid on a container, but in some cases this is still not enough airflow. For instance, if you are keeping crickets in something very deep like a garbage can, not having a lid does not give them airflow.
The preferred bin will be made of plastic that can be cut with a packing knife. You will want a good size vent like 4" x 4" or larger on at least two opposite sides of your bin and also one in the lid if you have a lid. The bigger the vents, the better the air flow.
Vents will need to have screen glued over them to prevent crickets from escaping. Hot glue works well for this. Vinyl screen works for crickets under 1/2" anything larger should have metal screens as they can chew their way out.
Crickets that can get through screens should have breathable tape like 3M Medipore added on top of the screen. Make sure the sticky side faces OUT and not toward the crickets.
Many people may have most of these supplies at home. If you end up needing to go buy them all, it may be less expensive to grab one of our Large Cricket Cages or Small Cricket Cages.
I am not a fan of glass containers unless you are keeping a very small amount of crickets for the size of your glass enclosure. The risk of moisture build up is too high otherwise. This brings us back to the bacteria becoming unable to leave the body and multiplying as mentioned above.
Food and Water Sources
It's easy to keep your crickets fed because they will eat most fruits and vegis that we eat. They should also have a grain, and you want that to be ground up. Some people use cracked corn, but that is not a great choice either. Here is a list of what I recommend:
Cricket Feed is available at various places, including this website in two sizes. Keeping a small bag of this around is easy and inexpensive. We also have added nutrients in our cricket feed that are not found in commercial feeds that will add to the nutrient content of your crickets. Specifically; Vitamins A, E, and C along with essential minerals.
Potato slices. Leave the peel on because they will eat it down to the peel and you have a nice dry thing to grab out and toss. Cut these up like apple slices.
Carrots - peeled. The outside of a carrot naturally repels insects, so peel them and cut them in half or slices. Read more about Carrots in the
Oatmeal - ONLY use organic plain or sprouted oats. No prepackaged instant oatmeal.
DO NOT FEED: Oranges or other citrus fruits. Any vitamin C and E can be obtained from carrots or sweet potatoes.
Something that I learned from an entomologist and dietary scientist is that frogs and toads in particular have a hard time getting their vitamin C, E, and A needs met. A frog or toad without proper amounts of Vitamin A will start to fail in health after roughly 6 months. Crickets love carrots, but they can not metabilize the betacarotene in carrots into the A and E like other animals. They do, however, store up the A and E so that when your frog eats the cricket, they receive the vital nutrients that they need.
As for Water sources, the potatoes and carrots will provide some hydration, but unless you are keeping very few crickets, or tiny crickets less than 1/8", they should have actual water available to them.
Let's talk water gels/cubes. Please do not use the colored water cubes from Flukers. These have a bunch of additives that are not necessarily good for your animals and definitely not in the best interest of keeping your crickets alive longer. This is not just my opinion, but the advice I have heard from numerous entomologists as well.
You can use the Clear Water Crystals that you can find online or on our website here in two sizes. The downside to these is that they dry out and get covered in frass (cricket poo) and smaller crickets can get stuck in them. It's not fun to scrape out of the enclosure after it dries either.
The best source of hydration is plain old water. You can use tap water depending on the quality of your source. You can also be on the safe side and use RO water, distilled water, or best of all, spring water that has natural minerals included.
DO NOT LEAVE A DISH OF WATER for your crickets, no matter how big they are. You can use a lid like a pringles cap with a round sponge like potters use, or best option is the Small Water dispenser on our site that wicks water up so there is no standing water, but it is always available (a sponge can dry out on top.) I looked long and hard for these Small water dispensers, and I know they are the best ones on the market. There are cheaper ones that don't hold the bottle well and are are more expensive ones online, but those are the same as ours at the price of 8.50, which is as low as we could make them. They come with 2 wicking pads and soon we should have replacement pads in stock. They clean really easily, just make sure they're well rinsed of any soap or bleach etc after cleaning them.
Hidey Holes
Anything that lays hundreds of eggs in their lifetime and only lives a short time is meant to be food. Crickets inherently know they are prey, so they like to hide. To keep your crickets happy, provide them with a Substrate like egg flats, paper towel tubes, toilet paper tubes, etc to hide in. They will happily spend all of their time in these unless they are eating, drinking, or mating. I do not suggest plastic hides, we want to keep everything breathable!
Crickets are not fans of the light and do not need UVB, or sunlight if you plan to keep them 4 weeks or less.