Keeping Crickets Alive Longer
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.
Space and Airflow - most common issue!
Crickets need space, they also need to be able to have good airflow for several reasons. I'm going to go into detail about these reasons in depth in the blog post ;"Keeping Crickets Alive - Deep Dive", but for this post I'm going to keep things simple in the event you just want to follow the instructions!
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.
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:
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.
Cricket Feed is available at various places, including this website in two sizes.
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 take 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 unless you are planning to breed them.
For an in-depth look into the how's and why's of creating a sustainable cricket habitat along with some more tricks of the trade; check out my blog "Keeping Crickets Alive - Deep Dive!"