Crickets as feeders - A debate.

[KaroKoenig]

I think crickets work great as feeders and personally believe the big chain pet stores give them a bad rep. They just buy hundreds of different sizes and keep them till they sell. Hence forth they stink real bad and you get plenty of dead ones being snacked on by the living ones.

The trick is to not give pet stores the opportunity to mess up your feeders. I asked the pet store when they get new deliveries, which in my case is "every wednesday". Then - and only then - I go there and buy a box full. If you go there a few days later, all you can find is smelly boxes full of carcasses and some semi-alive zombies.

Those crickets go into a roomy faunabox/kritter keeper with a few pieces of ripped-up eggcarton, some fresh vegetable food and a small bottlecap full of water. Get those poor things hydrated and get some real nutritional value into them. I start feeding them to my tarantulas after a day or two. A daily check for dead ones and a daily change of water. A few fish flakes every now and then for proteins to reduce cannibalism. Clean the whole setup as needed. Hardly any smell and little losses other than the usual bell curve of cricket life expecancy.

Yes, maintenance of feeders takes more time than maintenance of my tarantulas. But I have only two spiders, so I'm comfy with that.

 

[RezonantVoid]

"Yo bro your T's in a death curl, looks like its gonna kick the bucket..."

"Damn, i should've given it a proper setup last month as id originally intended. What can i possibly do to save face for my viewers?"

"Didnt you last feed it crickets? Why not just blame it on that?"

"No way, freaking genius. Lets go with that"



I have never had an issue with crickets going into my 10th year of invert keeping and 3rd year of serious hobbying. If people knew how to keep crickets properly it'd help save them alot of time, money and bad smells, instead of claiming they harbour parasites capable of bringing T's to their knees. The ONLY risk you run with well maintained crickets, is one eating a molting T which can happen with most feeders.

My spiel is done.

 

[AphonopelmaTX]

Is this the video that sparked this thread?

No cricket feeding?

Hey guys! I dont take this guy's videos too seriously... i just watch him here and there for entertainment purposes... but was wondering what u guys think avout his theory that the crickets he got were causing sickness in some of his T's. Hate to be gullible... but cant help but look at my...

arachnoboards.com

 

[RezonantVoid]

Is this the video that sparked this thread?

No cricket feeding?

Hey guys! I dont take this guy's videos too seriously... i just watch him here and there for entertainment purposes... but was wondering what u guys think avout his theory that the crickets he got were causing sickness in some of his T's. Hate to be gullible... but cant help but look at my...

arachnoboards.com

I only saw a few minutes of the cited video yesterday (couldnt make it any further), and that was the vid i was assuming this thread was based off

 

[testdasi]

Do you think these keepers are mistaking these losses for cricket parasites when they could be something else? Do you have evidence that these parasites do exist? Do you have a better feeder to recommend, regardless?

Exotic Lair made the rather common mistake of equating correlation with causation.
From the look of his videos, I think the guy lives in a tropical country so I would not be at all surprised if the tarantula parasites are just natively present in the substrate / deco etc (particularly my impression from his videos is that he isn't too careful with sterilising stuff). I think that is way more probable than having a parasite jumping from crickets to tarantulas.

I personally don't use crickets simply because they are noisy and smelly. The smell, in particular, is atrocious (and I don't think atrocious is negative enough to describe the stench!).
There are plenty of better alternatives to even have to resort to crickets.

• For small / medium tarantulas, mealworm is a great choice. You can keep them in the fridge and they last months. Small slings? Just cut the meal worm up. Otherwise just crush the head to stop them from burrowing.
• For medium+ tarantulas, super worms also work. They are harder to keep alive and don't last as long as meal worm though.
• Dubia roaches work with pretty much all tarantula sizes except dwarf slings. They tend to play dead and burrow so crushing the head is generally recommended.
• Lateralis roaches (aka red runners) work with even tiny dwarf slings (as their nymphs are just as small) but not with the biggest of females (e.g. LP, A. geniculata, Theraphosa etc.) as their adults are kinda small. They do smell worse than dubia (not as bad as cricket but bad enough that I don't consider having no smell to be a pro).

I personally used meal worm + dubia as main feeder. Nowadays only dubia as I don't have any sling small enough to require meal worm.

 

[Ratmosphere]

Have not had a problem you listed yet. However, they are annoying. Stink, loud, die quickly.

 

[basin79]

Everything that eats inverts gets crickets here as well as other livefood like morios, locust and waxworms. Tarantulas, spiders, scorpions, a vinegaroon, tail-less whip scorpion centipedes, salamander, toad, lizard........

No issues.

 

[Gurantula]

The trick is to not give pet stores the opportunity to mess up your feeders. I asked the pet store when they get new deliveries, which in my case is "every wednesday".
...

Those crickets go into a roomy faunabox/kritter keeper with a few pieces of ripped-up eggcarton, some fresh vegetable food and a small bottlecap full of water. Get those poor things hydrated and get some real nutritional value into them. I start feeding them to my tarantulas after a day or two.

Yeah, definitely a good idea to check with the stores to see when they get fresh deliveries.

When I bought crix from the store I would also do a similar step to you and wait a few days to feed the crickets to my Ts. One of my favorite cricket activities to watch is when you put the poor, dehydrated pet store crickets into a fresh, fully stocked enclosure. You can really see how much happier they are. I swear they smile That's another thing I like about crickets, they are social and move a lot. Sometimes I get too attached to them hahaha.

 

[ignithium]

Yeah as mentioned by other exotics lair lives in Singapore where tarantulas and their parasites are native. Whether crickets can transmit these parasites in Singapore I don't know. But point is if you don't live in South East Asia it's not an issue. Personally I don't use crickets because they are annoying (smell, noise, and the jumping) but pinheads are very good feeders for slings etc.