Why are my crickets dying ??

[katluc]

Hello again everybody, I`m upset. All my crickets are dying and I just cant fathom why. I keep their critter keeper clean, they have fresh food every day and I give them water in a soaked sponge ( provided with the kritter keeper ). I`m worried to give any to my T in case they´re diseased. Maybe there are too many for the amount of space? I get them from the local pet shop and I wanted to keep a colony. It`s sad. I know they´re potential fodder but I don`t want them to be unhappy. Can anyone help please ?

 

[JZC]

Ditch the water. Moisture kills crickets. Crickets also die if you look at them funny.

 

[katluc]

Just fresh fruit then with my eyes closed ?

 

[SuzukiSwift]

Usually crickets die off fast because there's too much moisture, with mine I keep things as dry as possible by feeding them oats instead of fruit and by spraying the walls occasionally instead of using a sponge, usually they will live over a month

 

[katluc]

Oats !! Super. Fruit for my kiddies, oats for the crickets. I`ll just go and move the fruit. I already took the water out......

 

[awiec]

I always had the best luck with keeping them in a tuppware container, anything else will just kill them. I give mine roach chow and give them a few water crystals every so often; they seem to thrive in this very low tech solution.

 

[Zigana]

I feed my crickets poultry Chick Starter and use Fluker's Cricket Quencher that is a water source in a gel form for those in my Kritter Keeper. I also have large containers of crickets of all ages so for these a heavy duty paper towel wadded in a ball that is sprayed as needed to have water available plus the Chick Starter. Started out with a few crickets from the pet store then decided to raise our own...plenty of crickets now and they refuse to die after months of thriving! I need more tarantulas and jumping spiders or sell some of these crickets.

 

[skippydude]

I have the same problems with crickets, even if everything is right they cannibalize each other

Once I switched to Red Racer roaches my feeder problems have changed from, buying them and hoping they stay alive to, OMG what am I going to do with all these freakin roaches. I haven't been to the feeder store since starting the red racer colony either and I have a butt load of tarantulas to feed

 

[katluc]

Great advice everyone, thanks. Since I first posted, there hasn`t been one cricket lying on it`s back with its legs wiggling. It looks promising. I´ll keep you posted.....

 

[Poec54]

Crickets need to be kept warm and dry. Too much water, moisture, & humidity will kill them, as will food with too much water content (like fruit). Good ventilation is required. There's a local reptile dealer near me that has been raising crickets for decades. They keep them warm and dry, in large plastic boxes with screen lids and no substrate. There's egg creates in each box, standing on end. They feed them dry earthworm food and romaine lettuce.

 

[vespers]

I usually just keep them in a "Critter Keeper" type container with a piece of egg carton, and throw in a small piece of carrot or an apple slice...provides enough moisture/food to keep them going for a bit.

 

[SamuraiSid]

I have the same problems with crickets, even if everything is right they cannibalize each other

IIRC, crickets cannibalize to make up for the lack of protein/water in their diet.

Oats sound interesting. Personally I provide them carrot and potato for nutrients and moisture, and fish flakes to round everything off. Everybody gets gutloaded before being fed off. Never had any major die offs in a few years. Adequate ventilation is important.

 

[Mill da Pill]

I feed mine on mix of veg and greens as well as earth, meal and morio worms chopped up a couple of times a month. I also give them fish flake and pellets and whenever my BD sheds they get the old skin
My crickets breed well

 

[dementedlullaby]

IIRC, crickets cannibalize to make up for the lack of protein/water in their diet.

Oats sound interesting. Personally I provide them carrot and potato for nutrients and moisture, and fish flakes to round everything off. Everybody gets gutloaded before being fed off. Never had any major die offs in a few years. Adequate ventilation is important.

It seems to me they just cannibalize because they can lol. I feed them a diet that has a decent amount of protein and they still huddle together (I read when they huddle together they're hurting each other with their sharp spikes on the legs) and slowly kill each other. When one dies it seems four more are next, even if I remove bodies as fast as I can observe. I had roughly 10 in a 3g tank with (what I thought was) adequate space. I've moved them to a 10g now. Hopefully this gives them more space to get away from each other. Someone mentioned on another forum that certain temps can cause this behavior so that's my next step I guess. I think I'll try the mealworms as Mill suggested as well. Perhaps that will quench their desire to see each other suffer. If I can get them to stop dying I'd like to try breeding lol =( poor crickets.

 

[The Snark]

Just some noise. Observations of crickets in the wild. Crickets are opportunistic omnivores that call the detritus layer their native home but range far beyond that. They are NOT social and won't hesitate to sample each other if more convenient prey isn't available. They are highly resistant to diseases but subject to mass die offs from contact with certain kinds of molds that periodically spread. Some molds are toxic outright and weaken animals like crickets and others create primitive antibiotics that play hell with the cricket's digestive system. Keep in mind, the periodic spread and die back of organisms is normal in the environment and extremely enhanced in the most populated region, the detritus layers.

So if you get a cricket die off, it is almost certainly caused by intolerance to a microorganism that has infected them. Alter their environment, usually by severely reducing moisture-humidity, provide a new environment as near sterilized as possible, change their food source and wait it out. Assume the ones that die after that were already infected and going to die anyway.

Remember, die offs are almost always caused by two things. Infection and stress. Reducing one will almost invariably enhance the other.

 

[just1moreT]

I have good luck with crickets so much I started hauling couple 1000 to my LPS every week , they are raised from egg to adult on, lettuce ,apple , orange and fish flake food and blended floating catfish food ,plus they have a water source they can drink from and not drown, hardly ever see a dead one good ventilation helps and no substrate .I keep them with a constant food source so there is no canableism and I also run a 15 watt light bulb for heat source in every bend not really needed but keeps them calm as I dont keep lids on there bends