How do you manage your collection?

[Bugmom]

I have around 50 inverts at the moment. I feed them every 5-10 days - really just when I find the time to do so, and it rarely takes me more than an hour if I don't stop to take photos. I do check on my animals every day though (all 72 of them, not counting the 500ish roaches and the isopod colony). Some just need water, some need spot maintenance - none of that takes more than 15 minutes usually. I can realistically feed, water, and do maintenance on all my critters in a few hours on a weekend, which is what I usually do. Add an hour onto that if I am filming it; fiddling with the camera takes time.

I am in the process of rethinking my feeders. I currently keep all of the crickets in one huge tub. This works great since they are happy in this container (except for T feeding nights) and thus never try to escape. This large tub makes cricket feeding, cleaning, and retrieval easy. However, it is a little work to pick out the size crickets I need during T feeding. For this reason I usually end up using a few extras during pre-kill feedings for my slings. I am debating on the idea of breeding crickets to save on the store purchases but am hesitant. I want to spend my time on T's not crickets so more research is needed. Now I do have some chirping crickets due to the number of them but the noise doesn't really bother me.

Crickets are disgusting, smelly things. Breed roaches instead. Red runners (lateralis) are the cricket equivalent of a roach, but without the ability to jump or smell awful. They breed relatively quick, and require very little care. Far less care than breeding crickets. You can also breed B. dubia roaches, which are bigger and slower than lateralis, but they do breed slower and in less numbers. Lobster roaches are another option but they can climb anything you put them in, so that makes them a pain in the butt.

 

[louise f]

I got a lot of T`s to manage, i dont really have counted them. But i usually water and feed every weekend for the adult ones. It takes around an hour.
The rest of the week from Monday to Friday i use around 1-2 hours a day to water and feed of slings and juvies. And my mantis and assassin bugs.

I got all my T`s in my living room, so it is pretty easy to see what`s going on, and when some have shed or thrown an egg sac. Or need to have boluses removed, cleaned up their water dishes. And so on.

 

[cold blood]

I would recommend breeding roaches instead -- they're quiet and don't smell.

+1, I would breed dubia though as they can't infest.

I hear this "they don't smell" all the time....yet my dubia, even freshly cleaned and re-housed, smell quite foul to me....not quite cricket bad, but they do smell.


As for breeding your own, mealworms are easy and a great starting point...I don't know why I don't do it.

 

[louise f]

...I don't know why I don't do it.

You really should, it IS freakin easy as you say. My colony has gotten much bigger since i got them earlier this year. You should go for it sweets You wont regret it.

 

[cold blood]

You really should, it IS freakin easy as you say. My colony has gotten much bigger since i got them earlier this year. You should go for it sweets You wont regret it.

Every time one pupates, I always feed it out right away....they all seem to like those white wiggly things.

 

[EulersK]

I hear this "they don't smell" all the time....yet my dubia, even freshly cleaned and re-housed, smell quite foul to me....not quite cricket bad, but they do smell.

Seriously? I mean, it's an exaggeration to say that they don't smell at all, but I don't think it's a strong or foul odor. I have to stick my head in the colony to smell anything, and even then it's just a mild ammonia smell.

 

[louise f]

those white wiggly things.

Hahahaha, f``` s´´´ That was too fun If you leave the wiggly things alone they`ll turn into beetles mate and lay eggs. And after a short amount of time you have new worms that is so freakin tiny you barely can see them.

BTW, i hate those wiggly things, at least to grab them in my hands. I just hate the way they twist with their entire body or what the heck you should even call that gross creep. I get the goose bumps. yuk

 

[ErinM31]

+1, I would breed dubia though as they can't infest.

I hear this "they don't smell" all the time....yet my dubia, even freshly cleaned and re-housed, smell quite foul to me....not quite cricket bad, but they do smell.

As for breeding your own, mealworms are easy and a great starting point...I don't know why I don't do it.

Are you saying that Shelfordells lateralis can infest? I did not think that they could as I believe they require moisture and would have very low fecundity at temperatures cooler than 75F. At least without hopping, scaling walls or flying, I shouldn't have any escapees and even if I did, my kitty patrol would deal with it as they do escaped crickets!

As for smell, I keep several roach species but no dubias yet. I wonder how they are different? Honestly, the only time any of my roach colonies has smelled was when I let some fruit sit uneaten too long! And that was hardly the roaches' fault.

Yeah, might as well culture mealworms when you can easily pick up starters from the pet store and they need almost no maintenance! The larvae of other darkling beetles might be good for variety but I don't know how fast they grow (rather by accident, I have dozens of Eleodes larvae (mostly E. goryi) -- I'll see how they do and whether they're worthwhile to maintain).

 

[Jeff23]

I would recommend breeding roaches instead -- they're quiet and don't smell. I tried breeding crickets and also bought pinheads and, IMHO, neither is worth it as it is difficult to get them out of the substrate (if you've bred them) and otherwise, they are HORRIBLY cannibalistic, even with food present, making them ridiculously expensive. I think you would need to regularly separate the cricket eggs from the adults to prevent them from being eaten.

I am still feeding my tarantulas and toads crickets but am working on getting a colony of Shelfordells lateralis established but I also keep a small colony of mealworms for variety. It takes a while for there to be enough cockroaches to be able to use them regularly as feeders (I bought two dozen nymphs and am waiting for them to reach adulthood) but I have not seen any die-off (unlike the crickets I buy from the pet store). Plus, they do not leap, climb glass or plastic nor burrow!

I am actually happy with crickets and more scared of having roaches in my home. I never get any escapes from the plastic tub. I sometimes even forget to put the lid on the cricket container for a while. They have a continuous supply of spinach, carrots, potatoes, cricket feed, and a dark place to rest so there is only pandemonium on T night when large numbers of abductions occur to the spider planet. Since I keep the crickets in a storage area they never bother me. I haven't tested all of my T's but many of them wouldn't eat the dubia's and lateralis roaches or super worms that I tried. I would still like to test alternate food sources (especially moths) for occasional fun feedings to the juveniles and adults.

If I breed crickets I would use a separate container to control the breeding process and provide needed temperatures. I don't need to make gigantic numbers in a continuous process since my T count is still fairly low. But breeding adds complications and taxes my time more than I want to add for a feeder right now. I also don't plan to keep a continuous number of slings. Once all of mine become Juveniles I no longer need tiny crickets or a butcher shop to serve up cricket breast, wings, legs, etc. Do crickets have white meat and dark meat like chicken?

 

[Andrea82]

Every time one pupates, I always feed it out right away....they all seem to like those white wiggly things.

Slings go crazy when i feed them the wiggly things. My mantids too. I think they're funny, shaking like they are trying to limbo out of the tweezers

 

[Bugmom]

Hahahaha, f``` s´´´ That was too fun If you leave the wiggly things alone they`ll turn into beetles mate and lay eggs. And after a short amount of time you have new worms that is so freakin tiny you barely can see them.

BTW, i hate those wiggly things, at least to grab them in my hands. I just hate the way they twist with their entire body or what the heck you should even call that gross creep. I get the goose bumps. yuk

Ugh, those wiggly things creep me out! They're like aliens. They are just.... WRONG somehow. My leopard geckos love them though.

Last time I tried to breed mealworms, I had an outbreak of grain mites in the container and *that* creeped me out too. But I battle mold in the roach bins. It's always something.

 

[Willuminati]

My current situation consists of...
Tarantulas
0.1.1- P. Regalis
0.0.1- B. Albopilosum
0.0.1- B. Vagans
0.1.1- L. Parahybana
0.0.2- A. Versicolor
0.0.4- P. Murinus
2.1.0- (H.) C. Lividum
0.1.0- A. Hentzi
0.1.0- C. Cyaneopubescens
0.1.0- C. Fimbriatus
0.0.2- H. Villosella
1.0.1- P. Irminia

True Spiders
0.1.5- L. Hesperus (Western Black Widow)
0.0.1-A. Diadematus (Cross Orbweaver)

Ball Pythons
1.0 - Black Pastel
1.0 - Pastel Yellowbelly
1.0 -Super Enchi
1.0 -Pastel Banana
0.1 - Mohave

My A to the Q...
With patience and a lot of attention to detail, behavioral details mostly, and more so during the acclimation of any specimen. They all differ in behavior and temperment, always, even within the same species. Along with that comes a TON of trial and error, since Not all advise is good advice.

Have Fun!!

 

[louise f]

They're like aliens

Yeah they do look like aliens, funny i dont have any liking those things, hehe. Ohh yeah the LP eat them like candy.

 

[Haksilence]

Hello everyone, I was thinking how do you manage your collection! I have a small number of invertebrates, and they all ready take up quite some time. How do you all with 20+ creatures manage? How do you keep up with feeding and watering, observation and maintenance?
Thanks

i spit them, i do slings on mondays and thursdays and adults on wednesdays. each day is like a 1-2 hour ordeal depend on how much spot cleaning, photographing, ect i do.

 

[Andrea82]

i spit them, i do slings on mondays and thursdays and adults on wednesdays. each day is like a 1-2 hour ordeal depend on how much spot cleaning, photographing, ect i do.

You shouldn't spit your tarantula...i am pretty sure they don't like that...
Sorry, funny typo, couldn't resist

 

[viper69]

I beg you to go the extra mile, man, and directly seal those books into a "Time Capsule". One day our "Mad Max" childrens will discover those books and they will create a brand new Theraphosidae religion :-s

" ... We don't need another 'grammos' "

I keep them in a vault 100 feet below ground.

 

[Haemus]

I used to record everything. Now only molting cycles. Feeding is the eyeball test now about a year in.

 

[Estein]

As for breeding your own, mealworms are easy and a great starting point...I don't know why I don't do it.

Agreed, my mealworm colony couldn't be easier to take care of. Small Sterilite tub, a few inches of oatmeal, and a new carrot every few days. Once I get an obscene amount, I'll be making some mealworm flour, much to the chagrin of my housemates. Gotta get that protein!

 

[Arthroverts]

Alright here's another question. How much time do you spend just watching your creatures?