# How can i reduce cricket smell?



## zxcv1234

Crickets smell bad.  Any tips on reducing this problem?


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## Windchaser

zxcv1234 said:
			
		

> Crickets smell bad.  Any tips on reducing this problem?


Make sure you provide plenty of ventilation. Also, if you have any type of paper product (egg carton or such), try to change them out regularly.

They do stink though, don't they?


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## becca81

Either switch to another food supply (roaches, etc.), or make sure that the cricket enclosure is kept very clean and not moist.  I've noticed a LOT of smell when the crickets are kept in a moist environment.  I have egg crates in the enclosure now and I've noticed a dramatic improvement in smell.


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## gothmog

Yeah, definately ventilation. Of late I've been keeping mine in a deep open topped plastic container and there's hardly any smell now much improved!

They still smell bad if you catch a whiff though    

-- Jon


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## Schlyne

I also try to buy only a 2 week supply of crickets at a time, and then I throughly wash and clean out the container they live in before I get a new supply.

I'm not sure if this helps with the smell, but I pick out the dead ones and toss them every other day or so.

I will be cricket free soon   My roaches are going strong.


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## becca81

Schlyne said:
			
		

> My roaches are going strong.


Although I don't have many Ts yet, I think this would be a great idea!  No more stinky crickets, and it would be cool just to breed the roaches!


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## Zelda

Everytime I buy more than 1 carton from the local supplier, by the time I get to the last carton all the crickets have killed each other.. Those things are murderous !!  And of course very smelly


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## reverendsterlin

toss crix breed roaches lol
Rev


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## galeogirl

Frequent spot-cleaning of the cricket enclosure helps, as does a dry substrate.  If you're hoping that a female will lay eggs, confine the moist area to a container buried in the substrate.

Any of these suggestions are just ways of minimizing odor, crickets seem to stink no matter what.  It's purely a matter of how much.


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## shogun804

i keep my crix with no substrate in a 10 gal tank with a screen lid and something for all of the to climb on IMO they do not smell as bad when they have no substrate...and yes plenty of ventalation will help as well
and crix do stink


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## dkny_stylez

i've never noticed this :? 

It must be a thing with the ventilation


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## Schlyne

I also keep mine on no substrate, but they still stink.


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## Cirith Ungol

Get roaches! I'd breathe roach air any day!


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## Joe1968

yup I  agree, roaches are better. or you can try placing some sliced apples, the aroma of apples specially when they dry up sometime mask the odor that crix produce.


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## spiderslair

I use a layer of dry oatmeal in the bottom of my 10 gal tank and it cuts down on the odor too.
Donna


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## Dark Raptor

I think that it is also problem of cricket species. I had five species:
Acheta domesticus, Gryllus bimaculatus, Gryllus campestris, Gryllus assimilis, Gryllodes sigillatus.
Gryllus bimaculatus is the worse thing (smell, agression etc.).

And I agree that roaches are much better. Try Nauphoeta cinerea, they are very easy to care.

And here is my terrarium for crickets (don't look at text   )
http://darkraptor.fateback.com/prostoskrzydle.html

And N. cinerea:


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## metzgerzoo

I totally agree with all the "get roaches" comments.  Not only do they NOT stink, they don't make any noise, they don't kill each other, they live longer, breed better, and you can feed them just about anything if you wanted to.
As far as crickets go...they just stink, period.


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## AphonopelmaTX

keeping crix with no smell takes a lot of work.  one must always keep dead crickets out of the enclosure, if the egg cartons get even a little moist by contacting potatoes or apples, they have to be changed.  damp cardboard and cricket poo is part of the 'cricket smell'. the other part of the smell is dead cricket. trust me, i did a little good old fashioned trial and error with my nose. i almost puked once with the 'dead cricket test' which is most of the scent that people smell when they refer to "stinky" crickets. crickets themselves don't stink. there is a third part to the smell. the decaying vegatable matter. potatoes are the worst. it's interesting in that only a bin of adult crickets will stink. any other age won't because adults are the ones who can't seem to stop dying. 

i have to be the odd ball here when saying i hate keeping lobster roaches as feeders.  i really don't see how they're a good food source.  when i kept a colony, the damn things kept running around their enclosure are were very hard to capture and toss into a spider's tank. their feet kept sticking to everything they came in contact with including my hands and arms. some of my spiders didn't even get to eat them because of the roaches ability to squeeze between the glass (or plastic) and where the substrate pulled away. some roaches buried themselves in the substrate and never came out. once i put a roach into a 2 inch Ephebopus cyanognathus deli cup and found it a year later sitting at the bottom happy as can be. food items aren't supposed to be happy in a spider's house! i really don't know if there is a special method in feeding those things to spiders or what. but it didn't work at all for me.

-Lonnie

Reactions: Like 1


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## AlanMM

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...


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## JohnxII

Yes, if you pick up a cricket and stick it up your nose, they do have that stinky smell (& I'm not advising you to try)... and the T's probably think "tasty!" because of that!

Anyhow, for me, extra ventilation, no substrate, no horizontal egg carton stacking (I switched to vertical side-by-side kinda arrangement), no excess fruits/moisture. And bi-weekly/monthly complete cleaning.

I think I'll stick to crix because (1)My family won't allow me rearing roaches (yeah it's an impression thing) and (2)Crix are soft and juicy and have a relatively thin exoskeleton. And they are good for feeding other things apart from T's.

P.S. & yes removing dead ones regularly helps a lot. But the high ventilation alone already helps keeping down the mortality rate tremendously.


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## 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


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## 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.


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## 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!!


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## 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.


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## 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...


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## 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...


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## 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


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## 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


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## 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...


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## 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


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## 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....


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## 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?


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## 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?


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## 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.


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## 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!


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## 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.


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## NoS

Where do you get Locust from?


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## shogun804

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


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## jw73

Are Locusts noisy like crickets ?


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## 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.


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## Dark Raptor

jw73 said:
			
		

> Are Locusts noisy like crickets ?


No. They sounds like grasshoppers.


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## Dark Raptor

pinktoes804 said:
			
		

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


All stages of hisser (Gromphadorhina portentosa) and adult Blaberus species.


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## zxcv1234

Food does not lose micro or macro nutrients when frozen.


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## bonesmama

I've never had a problem with odor- but then again, I only keep @ 2 doz. in any container - I feed em gut load and dry dog food- I worry about pesticides on fruit and veggies (am I paranoid?) I remove dead crickets as soon as I notice any, and clean the KK's with a diluted bleach and dish soap solution, also their water and food dishes. It seems since I'm cleaning with the bleach I have fewer die on me. My partner won't have roaches   in the house!


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## Pandora®©™

I keep crickets maybe 2 dozen at the time and if i don't clean there incloser at least every other day it smells really bad, and I can't stand it when I see one just molted, that's just nasty.  I also wont have roaches in my house     so when summer comes again the crickets can stay on the back screened in.  
I live in FL so they should do just fine out there.  I also feed the gut load and dog food.  and they still stink


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