# Keep Crickets from Stinking



## CitizenNumber9 (Feb 6, 2014)

Hello everyone! I believe I may have found something that can keep crickets from smelling too much. 

First I'd like to explain my set-up: I have two shoebox containers; one for adult crickets and one for small crickets. I recently picked up 50 large crickets hoping to start a breeding project, though I have to wait for most of them to mature first. The shoeboxes are set up with zero substrate and a few pieces of egg carton to make the critters happy. I feed them crushed up cat food, goldfish flakes, oats, and whatever green vegetable we have in the house at the time (lettuce, cabbage, potatoes, etc.) The reason I use lettuce and leafy plants is because I've noticed that rather than molding, they tend to just dry up after a day or two. No mold smell! I generally just sprinkle the food in the bottom of the containers - dry food on one side, vegetables on the other. 

Okay everyone, hang onto your britches for this next part because I HAVE MADE A NOTABLE DISCOVERY!! 

The most recent vegetable to be found in our house was celery. In case some of you don't know, celery is a green vegetable with little leafy bits at the top that, while we humans don't normally tend to like them, crickets seem to love. All right now, I hope you're ready for this: CELERY HAS A *VERY* STRONG SMELL. Shocking, right? Upon opening my crickets' containers, I was hit with a smell wave so powerful, so incoherently wonderful, I almost did a "Blue's Clues" and hopped right into the container (Let's not think about how terrifying it would be to shrink to the size of a cricket and then be surrounded by about 40 of them). Basically what I'm saying is, instead of smelling old, dead crickets when I pulled off the lid, I was hit with the wonderful smell of celery.


I hope you all enjoyed my over-zealous exaggerating, as I had fun typing this up :giggle: Let me know how you guys deal with smell and how your cricket breeding projects are going if you have any. 

I know there will be comments about this so I'll go ahead and nip it in the butt. : I do not like roaches. They are creepy and crawly and icky. I could get used to them, but my mother never will and I have plans to move to FL so I couldn't keep them anyway. :sarcasm:

PS: I also am trying to breed mealies. Does anyone know how feeding fish flakes and cat food to them works, or if it is nutritionally beneficial? I can't seem to find anything about it online  Also, has anyone tried feeding chicken food to crickets and mealies or if it would be nutritionally beneficial as well? I have a huge zip lock bag full of the stuff heheh.

If anyone is curious on my breeding plans I'll post that too for criticism purposes. :bruised: Just let me know!

Thanks everyone!
Autumn

Reactions: Like 2


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## Introvertebrate (Feb 6, 2014)

Finally, a use for those leafy celery bits that I usually throw out!  I can't say conclusively, but I think your food choices will work on other feeders as well.  Commercial cricket food is essentially chicken food in disguise.


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## CitizenNumber9 (Feb 6, 2014)

Introvertebrate said:


> Finally, a use for those leafy celery bits that I usually throw out!  I can't say conclusively, but I think your food choices will work on other feeders as well.  Commercial cricket food is essentially chicken food in disguise.


Ahhaha I will have to try it then. I'm just worried because I just remembered how smelly that chicken food made my ducks after feeding it to them. I may actually be taking a step backwards haha.


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## Spepper (Feb 6, 2014)

I just keep my mealworms in a plastic bin with wheat bran and an apple or potato slice very little bit for moisture.  It seems like feeding them fish food or anything else would make them smelly because fish food is smelly by itself.   However I'm sure mealworms will eat just about anything given to them.  They're detrivores, really, so anything on the ground in the wild would be fair game for them.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Tongue Flicker (Feb 6, 2014)

I put lumps of coal and lemon wedges at the corners of my cricket tubs


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## CitizenNumber9 (Feb 6, 2014)

Tongue Flicker said:


> I put lumps of coal and lemon wedges at the corners of my cricket tubs


For the smell? Interesting...


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## Perocore (Feb 7, 2014)

I found that keeping crickets on coconut fiber made the smell a lot less awful than keeping them without substrate. I'll have to try the celery leaves, though...I am fond of those myself XD

In regards to the mealworm question- I recently did an experiment with my mealworms were I set some healthy individuals aside in a container where they were fed a mixture of tropical fish flakes, dog, and cat food and some others were fed simply layer's mash (for chickens). Each container got a slice of potato or carrot 2/3 times a week (depending on how quickly the older bit wore out). At first those in the fish flakes were thriving, as were those on the mash. However, after a few weeks I had no pupae from those on the fish flakes, and they quickly began to die out. Those on the layer mash continued to thrive, pupate, and are now some lovely little darkling beetles making me more little mealworms. 


My crickets, on the other hand, did better on fish flakes and preferred the tropical fish flakes over the layer mash. I use layer mash because it is very high in calcium and protein, both of which are things I want my mealies to be high in since they're used to feed leopard geckos.


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## viper69 (Feb 7, 2014)

So if you keep celery in there how are you sure the crickets are properly gut loaded ? Instead  of being full of celery??


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## CitizenNumber9 (Feb 7, 2014)

Hmmm that is very interesting! I'll have to add some chicken food to my mealies. Right now they are just on oats and all but two of them are pupae. I only had 8 meal worms to work with because I fwd so many to my rat xD she loves them! 





Perocore said:


> I found that keeping crickets on coconut fiber made the smell a lot less awful than keeping them without substrate. I'll have to try the celery leaves, though...I am fond of those myself XD
> 
> In regards to the mealworm question- I recently did an experiment with my mealworms were I set some healthy individuals aside in a container where they were fed a mixture of tropical fish flakes, dog, and cat food and some others were fed simply layer's mash (for chickens). Each container got a slice of potato or carrot 2/3 times a week (depending on how quickly the older bit wore out). At first those in the fish flakes were thriving, as were those on the mash. However, after a few weeks I had no pupae from those on the fish flakes, and they quickly began to die out. Those on the layer mash continued to thrive, pupate, and are now some lovely little darkling beetles making me more little mealworms.
> 
> ...




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viper69 said:


> So if you keep celery in there how are you sure the crickets are properly gut loaded ? Instead  of being full of celery??


What's wrong with being full of celery? :laugh: 

Elaborate on the term "gut loaded".


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## 1Lord Of Ants1 (Feb 7, 2014)

There's a big difference between crickets gut loaded with useless fillers such as low quality cat food and water based veggies, as opposed to ones with a large and varied diet. To ensure my pets get the best nutrition, I feed my feeder insects and crickets a large variety of greens and veggies such as dandelions, kale, collards, endive, escarole, mustard greens, carrots, squash, zucchini, sweet potato, sweet red pepper, papaya, and more. I grow most of this myself. As for their dry diet (which composes no more than 40% of their diet) I use a mix of my own ingredients and several commercial gut loads. (Repashy, flukers, etc.) Celery leaves are good source of moisture, but are mostly water and are not very nutritious.

Reactions: Like 1


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## viper69 (Feb 7, 2014)

CitizenNumber9 said:


> Hmmm that is very interesting! I'll have to add some chicken food to my mealies. Right now they are just on oats and all but two of them are pupae. I only had 8 meal worms to work with because I fwd so many to my rat xD she loves them!
> 
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Look up gut-loaded Ms LAZY!

Reactions: Like 1


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## CitizenNumber9 (Feb 7, 2014)

viper69 said:


> Look up gut-loaded Ms LAZY!


I'd rather have my crickets live in Shanty Town I think

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## Perocore (Feb 9, 2014)

CitizenNumber9 said:


> Hmmm that is very interesting! I'll have to add some chicken food to my mealies. Right now they are just on oats and all but two of them are pupae. I only had 8 meal worms to work with because I fwd so many to my rat xD she loves them!
> 
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> 
> ...


For the feed go with either Layer mash or grower mash. If you're not feeding reptiles then go with the grower mash since it's high in protein but not so high in calcium. And just let them pupate, mature, and given about a month you should have some new baby mealies. My darkling beetles reproduce better when I offer shelter- usually card-board egg cartons. Also remember to offer carrots, potatoes, apples, etc for moisture. Crickets really seem to appreciate a mix of fish flakes, cricket-gel, and various veggies. Spinach, kale, carrots, and other dark leafy greens seem to be a favorite. 

And gut-loading is essentially making sure that feeders have been fed high-nutrient food at most 24 hours before feeding. Mine are actually fed a large meal about four hours before being given to my leo's and T's. I give them about 4 hours to assure all of the food has been consumed. The high-nutrients is key. 

Haha, my ratties tend to beg for mealies as well!

Reactions: Like 1


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