How can i reduce cricket smell?

[jw73]

No substrat, No ventilation (It is silencer), clean two times a week (perfunctorily), remove food, water and dead ones every day, change egg cartoons once a week.
That works for me. I can smell them only if I open their container

 

[SpiderDork]

I keep my crickets on dry newspaper and feed them fish food flakes and orange slices, as long as I remove the dead crickets I have very little to no smell. The orange slices are great because they usually dry up before they grow mold or begin to decompose and the crickets love them, if I put in gutload or some other type of "cricket food" they ignore it and go for the orange and fish food every time. I haven't tried roaches yet but I am seriously considering it, if anyone has advise on species, care and feeding I would love to hear from them.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

I have a blaptica dubia roach colony running now for over a year and still have problems feeding them to my T's.
The blondi's, genics and all my slings eat them... but still have a lot of T's that don't want them... even a L. parahybana, all the avics, all the brachies and all the grammostola's don't like them...
So i still need crickets and hoppers...
They smell, but when well ventilated and without substrate they do (almost) fine...

Is this a common problem? Does anybody else have it? I've just established my colony for future use (planned on getting enough roaches by the time I have enough Ts). It's almost making me wanna sacrifice one of my precious little roaches to see if my vagans eats them at all!!

 

[MrFeexit]

I breed both dubias and hissers. If they don't want one they will eat the other. The young hissers tend to be "more tender" for lack of a better term. My avics seem to like them a bit more. However most of my Ts will eat either choice, the adult dubia tend to be a noisy meal. Lots of crunching sounds because of the wings.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Just made the test - both my Pimp and Bvagans are now munching away happily... SeekneSs: are you sure your Ts are really hungry? I guess you are but I ask anyway...

 

[AlanMM]

Well, some of them don't touch the roach when i give one, but when i give them a cricket instead, they take it right away.
The thing i can think about is:
All my slings eat roaches... the big adults that i didn't raised myself don't eat them... those adults arent used to eat roaches from the owner were i bought them from.
I guess they just prefer the crickets... and if i wait long enough, they would eat a roach if really really necesary.
There is one adult pulchra, 10 yrs old that likes them... but the adult versi's, boehmei, smithi, parahybana and C.cyanopubescens run away from roaches.
And i waited long for them to take one, only giving them roaches for at least 3 months.
I'll will keep on trying...

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Hm... that sounds odd... I mean, now, today this was the first time I ever gave them one... so maybe in the future (if I'm extremely unlucky for some very strange reason) they might refuse them... but I can't believe that really... Anyway the vagans pounced it as soon as it felt it moving, the scorp hunted it mercilessly down through the entire tank once she got it's scent so at the moment they are basically giving me the "go ahead"... hope it stays that way!

I too have only fed them crickets and worms (Zoophobas if) before today... Maybe you should rear your roaches with a bit more love (like give 'em a cuddle every now and again)? Maybe that does the trick

 

[Malkavian]

In my experience (used to keep a few hundred crix at a time for geckos) low ventiliation + moist substrate + dead crix = horiffic smell. We ended up keeping ours in an open topped plastic tub that was too smooth for them to climb; that amount of ventiliation kept the smell down noticably

 

[AlanMM]

I love my roach colony... and I enjoy watching them like i enjoy watching the T's. It's sometimes hard to give a roach to a T...
And those baby roaches... oww cute...

 

[Cirith Ungol]

I love my roach colony... and I enjoy watching them like i enjoy watching the T's. It's sometimes hard to give a roach to a T...
And those baby roaches... oww cute...

Ok, then the problem is the opposite, seems you love them TOO MUCH!! ;P

But seriously - what food are you giving your roaches? Maybe it has to do with that - that if they digest something that gives them a particular smell maybe the Ts don't like that? I guess this is highly speculative tho

 

[AlanMM]

Carrots, brocoli, salad liefs... anything that's over from dinner (fresh food... washed very well).
I think it aslo can be cause of there caracter of the T... the parahybana for instance runs to the roach when i drop it in the cage, touches it, and then ignores it.
The good eaters like genic and blondi's just jump on it and munch on them right away... (although a parahybana is known to be a good eater to, but that specimen has always been a pain in the butt when it comes to feeding...)

I heard from several people that for some T's one have to be patient until they accept different kind of food...
So, i will be patient....

 

[WingedDefeat]

See, roaches are fine and dandy, but what happens when a pregnant one escapes? Yes, under proper conditions they would never have the chance to escape, blah blah blah, meow meow meow, rubble rubble. But there is no such thing as "perfect conditions."

I hate the way crickets smell. Blech! Are there any good alternatives besides roaches?

 

[NoS]

What about just keeping and gutloading Superworms. There is post about it here...
Gutload Experiment

I have thought about keeping Superworms around for feeders and buying just 100 crikets from the pet store every so often for something different.
I would consider not using crikets at all and just using Superworms except I also have a Chameleon that likes crikets so...

Superworms are cheap, can be kept in very small containers, and Someone has informed me that new studies show that Mealworms and Superworms offer more nutrition than thought before. This is something I was told. Not actuall fact that I know of. Though if you gutload them then there shouldnt be a problem.

Roaches can escape and so can crikets. My upstairs neighbor is getting upset with me because he is finding crikets in his bedroom. I have no idea how they escape. I have them in containers that there is no way they can get out of, but it happens.

Thoughts?

 

[AlanMM]

Blaptica dubia is a tropical roach species.
I live in Belgium, a pregnant roach could possibly lay some eggs, but i don't think they would live that long in these conditions.
And i must say, i keep them over a year, and never had one roach escape. They can't climb anything (at least this species), they are kinda slow, males got wings but fly like a rock.

 

[Dark Raptor]

I've got roaches for several years. I had many escapes of Gromphadorhina portentosa and Blaberus giganteus.
As SeekneSs in Belgium, in Poland we have even worse conditions. If you live in a flat, central heating can be very helpful. It can dry up roaches - they can die during moulting.
But I know that many people keep Periplaneta and Blatta species. These are really nasty. So watch out!

 

[Darryl Albers]

i have become very fond of locusts . they seem a lot more hygenic and they climb the spiderlings walls , hatclings that is so the arboreals can get them in their tubular webs .

if youve had them for 2 weeks or longer . move them into a temporary container and clean their enclosure with a good disinfectant .
i use veta~clean microbiocidal and rinse after . then put em back so they
arent running around in their own crap anymore b.

 

[NoS]

Where do you get Locust from?

 

[shogun804]

so what specie of roaches do not burrow into the T's substrate??

 

[jw73]

Are Locusts noisy like crickets ?

 

[Ultimate Instar]

Ts will eat dead food. I drop dead roaches and crickets in the tank. If the T doesn't take it within 24 hours, I remove it and assume that the T wasn't hungry. This is a lot more convenient since I can store dead roaches and crickets in the freezer, then thaw them out for feeding. There may be some nutrition lost in the freezing process, so it might be a good idea to occasionally feed freshly killed insects.

Karen N.