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how to clean out a cricket cage?

  • Thread starter swords
  • Start date
No it's not a riddle, or not supposed to be.... but I'm curious how to keep the remaining crickets but clean out the container? What to do with all those feeders while I hose out their cricket keeper?
 
Crickets make horrible feeders, messy, noisy, smelly. Roaches on the other hand... great feeders (more meat to shell ratio and can be feed at any size cause, and you don't have to worry about them bitting), once you get over the "man i have a bin full of roaches in my house" thought, its kinda neat they have some really cool colorations on some of them, and will breed prolificaly. and you dont have to really clean out the Cage cause the young roaches will eat most of it (of course it does get to a point.

But what I suggest doing is if you are using egg crates put egg crates to fill maybe half of the cage, (so half of the cage has egg crates). Then when you want to clean it out, just take a wet rag, or something scoop out the dead crickets, then wipe it down (or clean it how ever you need to) just no chemicals. Then switch the egg crates to the other side, and then clean the dirty half and just leave the egg flats on the one side. Thats how I did it with my roaches. Though Some people use Cork Board and use like a long metal bolt, get some nuts, make it so you can put the bolts through the cork board, and then make enough space between each cork board. Really easy, and you can pick it up no problem to clean around the cage.

Just my 2cents.
 
That is the question of the century. I wish I had an answer.

I have two tanks. I alternate them. I buy 1000 crickets at a time. I put them in one of the tanks. When all the crickets are gone from the old one I clean it out.
 
That is the question of the century. I wish I had an answer.

Ha ha! Cool, glad I ain't alone! :)

I order 500 1/4" crix at a shot, I'm getting to the end of this shipment and the new ones are coming on Wed or Thurs depending if UPS is shipping on Mon or not. So I gues I'll jut do as before and dump out the few stragglers and clean the cage and put in new egg crates.

Yeah, NepAk the ol' lady will not go for roaches we had few years back (not as feeders just house guests) but I succeded in ridding us of them so she'd just die if I brought home some big blats! They have tons of neat roach species at the herp shop but she won't even walk down that aisle! ;)
 
Nep_AK,

Roaches may be good for the reason you cite but they have one big drawback in this case, youngin' brown anoles are way to small to eat roaches :)

I will agree with Ozzy that crix cage cleaning is a conundrum. Some things that help: paper towels as flooring, eggcrate for the beasts to hang out on, petri dishes for food/drink placement.
 
young anoles are to small for even some of the baby roaches......dont think ive got any youngins in my colony small enough for an adult anole.....the lil buggers grow to darn fast.....that and some ppl REALLY dont like roaches..........i use the half grown ones as feeders for my foot long bearded dragon.
 
There's a local mom & pop pet store in my area and they use the egg crate method that nepenthes_ak describes. They have their large crickets in a open reach down bin, looks like in an earlier life was reach down freezer/fridge they kind you find ice cream bars in at the corner store.
 
oh forgot to add.....im using Blaptica dubia as my feeder roach....its prolly the most commonly used......will get pics tonight of various sized individuals. there are smaller species but then yah run into an aweful lot of fliers and glass climbers
 
  • #10
Ozzy,
I get 500 at a time from Chirp-N-Time off ebay cos he barely finishes one container before they 're getting too big for him to swallow. I pay $17.50 with 2nd day shipping on 500 ($8.50 for the 1/4" crix and $9 shipping). It's about twice what you pay since I only order half as many but it's still 10 times cheaper than the local shop who wants a dime each. Does lllReptile sell lots of 500 or only 1000's?

I've also noticed the crix I've been ordering by mail are healthier than the ones from the local pet shop or even the expensive herp shop. I have almost no dead crix after 2-3 weeks whereas the ones from petsmart and Petco (or TC Reptiles) only live a few days even though I'm feeding them the same meal and water gel. Has anyone else noticed the petshop crickets seem to die off?
 
  • #11
Click on that link and you can see their prices. They sell 500 for $14.99.
 
  • #12
here are the roaches......

adults(male with wings, female without)
IMG_0113.jpg


nymphs.......one of the smallest i could find and a typical one that Stumpy eats
IMG_0114.jpg


assorted nymphs
IMG_0115.jpg


and Stumpy
IMG_0097.jpg

IMG_0095.jpg
 
  • #13
hey, can you send me some roaches?


:-D
 
  • #14
dont have much extra...........for the breeders i got the lizard keeps there population pretty well in control.....that and i keep their tote cooler than optimal in order to keep the breeding under control........the dragon is the only critter i have that eats them other than the odd small nymph the toad gets but he prefers worms....
 
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