Soggy, dead crix. Why?

[abstract]

Question:

I got 24 med/large crix that I put in a cricket keeper after taking home - all look healthy and running around.

Fed about half of them. The next day, I noticed that several of the crix, both uneaten in spiders' cages and in the cricket keeper were dead, real dark colored, and soggy. When I picked them up they smushed.

I read problems in the past about crix overheating, but I don't think this is the issue. I'm wondering if i fed my spiders a bunch of diseased crix.

This ever happen to anyone?

:?

 

[MizM]

I have had as much as a 50% death rate... but someone told me that this just happens. But rest assured that your Ts can't pick up any DISEASES from the crix, however they can get parasites from them!

 

[chuck]

the odor they leave behind lasts too. do you remove the crix with tweezers? maybe you kill or criple the crix b4 the T can get it with by the way you catch them.

 

[Immortal_sin]

I'd be somewhat alarmed. And probably to be safe, I'd get rid of that batch.
I'm staying away from crickets as a food source since I'm paranoid about the nematode problem. If you can't get any other food for your spiders, I'd just try a new batch of crickets..

 

[Sean]

Originally posted by chuck
the odor they leave behind lasts too. do you remove the crix with tweezers? maybe you kill or criple the crix b4 the T can get it with by the way you catch them.

yeah i pulled a half eatibn cricket out of my parahybanas cage, after a couple days it was grey amd mushy and it stank really bad

 

[Code Monkey]

Were these mostly the large that died? Crickets have a relatively short lifespan and the large ones are often very near their expiration date. Gravid females in particular turn to mush quickly.

 

[Nameless]

This is really strange. This samething just happend to me. I got some crix on Monday. About 25% of them turn to soggy sloppy mess too. And I don't think the ones I got were anything larger then medium size (whatever that means). And yes is stanky as hell and having to clean them out of my homemade crix keeper sucked.

 

[kellygirl]

Yeah, I can't seem to keep crickets alive for long... they always seem to end up in one of my tarantulas' fangs! =D

-Kelly

 

[chuck]

i get a dozen a week and those that havent been eaten in a week dont die like this. i just feed them fish flakes, and they seem to live for the week.

 

[abstract]

Crickets suck. This makes me want to get my moth/roach colony "project" actually off the ground.

Thanks for the input! It's good to know this happens to others w/the crix.

Code - I'd say it was a pretty diverse size of crix that mushed,...

Kelly - you might share a common problem.......

Chuck - I use one of those cricket keeper things with tubes coming out of it - the cricket(s) crawls in the tube to hide, and I just knock it out into the enclosure - I don't think i'm killing them w/brute force...

 

[Telson]

I don't mess with trying to keep crix for more than a day or two at most for this very reason. I buy when I need to feed the gang, and just buy about as many as I think I'll need. I keep leftovers in the fish-bag they sell 'em in over night at most and by the end of the day after buying them they are either gone or dead in the bag. Obviously I attribute their deaths to a complete lack of any effort to care for them on my own part, but the result is the same... crix soup.

BTW: Nematode problem? I'm aware that it's not uncommon for WC Ts to have these parasites, but what is this nematode prob you are refferring to regarding CB crix?

Having worked for a couple years in pet stores and been the guy saying "Smal, medium, or large?" to customers, I know how to set up a crix bin, but the things are a pain in the butt to be honest, so I imagine a breeding bin would be even more so... I've seen a lot of posts from ppl with roach colonies, but am not highly interested in the long time it takes to establish one, and would likely wind up with them breeding way out of control as my collection is at that point of being too big for convenient scheduling of crix purchases, but too small for a self sustaining colony to be kept under decent population control by feeding them off... Any suggestions?

 

[Tzatch]

always

I dont think you have anything to whorry about. All the crickets i get do this. but who knows.

 

[Gillian]

Abstract,
Happens to me from time to time. Maybe the humidity was too high? As well, they start decomposing fairly quickly after death.
Peace, Light & Eternal Love...
Gillian
)0(

 

[sunnymarcie]

My turn

This topic always comes up and I ask they same question........

Do you keep the crickets in a dry box?

They do need a very dry environment to survive for any length
of time. I purchase crickets by the 1000's every month and have
very little loss. Mostly due to old age.
I use a rubbermaid box, a water dish (with cotton) and a
food bowl.
Water is changed daily. I feed them calcium dusted hard cat food
and a few veggies.
The worst problem I had was that they would eat each other all the time. Since I started feeding them cat food, they seem to
have stopped.
They do tend to smell bad, but with good ventilation that can be
tolerated.

 

[abstract]

Do you keep the crickets in a dry box?

Not entirely, I normally put a couple chunks of that cricket-water stuff in there, along with a bit of Fluker's gut load.

So humidity kills them easy? Would whatever humidity comes off that gel stuff be enough?

Normally, I keep them under the same conditions, and I only find 1-3 dead ones. This time though, the losses were much more apparent.

 

[Code Monkey]

It's not humidity itself but the conditions that lead to high humidity in most cases. Crickets need extreme ventilation because their wastes and their bodies do break down quickly and give off toxic gasses which poison others and create a chain reaction of death and decay. When I buy crickets, the larger ones go into a medium sized critter keeper and the small ones go into a large modified flour container from rubbermaid. I can keep them alive with minimal losses for the couple of weeks it takes to feed them out. It's also good to remove the dead as quickly as possible.

So, if your room itself is humid, not a problem, but if humidity is building up in the container because of poor ventilation, stanky, gooey cricket mess is the result.

 

[rat boy dave]

Code Monkey is exactly right, ventilation is extremely important to avoid the death and decay chain reaction. Not sure what you're holding the crix in, but I'd reccomend an aquarium with a screen top, or a really large critter keeper that has the fully ventilated top. A rubbermaid with holes drilled into it isn't going to cut it.

Dave

 

[sunnymarcie]

Rat/Dave~A rubbermaid with holes drilled into it isn't going to cut it.

It works for me. I keep the smaller crix in the shoe box size rubbermaid container. The larger crix never last that long,
they get eaten up quickly.
And I also know others who use the larger boxes
without the top. If its deep enough the crix can't jump out.

 

[rat boy dave]

Sunnymarcie, adult and large crickets are definitely more susceptible to this problem. The big guys overheat easily with lack of ventilation, espescially if you have a lot of them in a container, not just a dozen or two. Some adults die...bacteria builds up...it spreads to the survivors..making more die...and you end up with a nasty, stinky mess. The fact that large crix are at the end of their life cycle doesn't help either. This can still happen with smaller crix that are over crowded, but they aren't as susceptible as the adults. Large rubbermaids with no top are perfect too, 100% ventilation. I just figure you can't go wrong with full ventilation (unless you have pinheads which is a whole other story).

Dave

 

[Code Monkey]

Right, what I have is flour container that I cut a large hole out of the top and then hotglued nylon mesh over. Never underestimate the power of the hotglue gun combined with nylon mesh for homemade containers