Cricket question.

[Halgeir]

Hey guys.
Since my Blaptica Dubia colony is rather small, I've been buying some crickets to feed my t's and my scorpion.
I've been keeping them in a small plastic box, around 10 of them.
But every day I keep seeing dead ones, when I open the box to take them out they look like theyr half-eaten. Heads missing, half body missing and so on.

Is cannibalism common amongs crickets? Cause it looks like they have ganged up against the ones that have died.
Perhaps I need a bigger enclosure for them?

 

[KennyGee]

You feeding them and giving a water source?

 

[Suspect187]

They will eat each other if food and water aren't available to them.

 

[Skypainter]

Yeah, crickets are a pain in the ass. They often die even when they have everything they need.

 

[Halgeir]

They got some catfood in the bottom of their box. So food shouldn't be a problem. I'll give them some extra water to be sure.

 

[eight leg goth]

i found this site helpful

http://www.herper.com/insects/feeders.html

 

[Halgeir]

Ok, a little update. I think I've found the reason for the amount of cricket deaths. One of the remaining cricket (like 6-7 have died and there's two left) is black, and the others are brownish. And he got the killer look in his eyes.

Just checked their enclosure and another cricket has died, holes in him and all legs chewed off.

Does it make sense to you?

 

[P.jasonius]

um, cat food?

There is 'cricket food' available on the market, little cubes of vitamins and calories to load your crickets with before you feed them to your loved ones. Crickets are cannibalistic, provided they lack a suitable food source. Are they actually eating the cat food? I can't even attract roaches with my cat food, I doubt they're eating it, which is why they'd rather eat each other. Fruit or vegetables would be a better source of food for them. I use this when I don't have the cricket food in the fridge, which keeps for a long time by the way.

 

[Halgeir]

Possible to feed roaches with 'cricket food' aswell? And do you have a link to a place that sells them? Then, with the name of the food, I can check if I can find some european sites that sell them.

 

[P.jasonius]

cricketfood.com

 

[Thoth]

They will commonly cannibalize each other even when they have adequate food and water. I used to use Flukers Orange Cubes (you can get it from any petstore) for my crickets but stopped keeping crickets and only buy enough per feeding. Also most pet stores sell food to gutload your crickets with, a waste of money in my opinion because you can easily find online recipes which you can easily make up yourself.

Also it is possible for a bad batch of crickets, i.e. they have parasites which are killing them off.

Yes you could feed your roaches cricket food with no problems, whether they eat it is a different matter.

 

[P.jasonius]

FLukers, that's what I had; the little orange cubes. How much of a pain is raising crickets?

 

[Thoth]

If you're going to raise feeders go with roaches they don't stink as bad and you don't have to deal with the chirping. Depending on species of roach you may have a shorter generation time.

 

[Stylopidae]

If you're considering raising feeders, read my thoughts and suggestions on feeder roaches