All crickets died

[stalincat]

Hi there,

so, today I discovered that most of my black crickets are dead. Brown ones are fine, but black ones died! I keep them in cricket pen holders, they have dry food and water granules. They looked like somebody was stomping on them. Looks pretty grim. Never happened before. Any ideas?

 

[camimom]

how mcuh egg carton is in there?
how big is the bin and how many crickets were in there?

 

[stalincat]

there was no egg carton. They were in on of those things

Not sure how many were there, about 50 I'd say. The weird thing is that the brown ones are in exactly the same box and they are fine.

 

[camimom]

yea that thing is why.

they need egg cartons to crawl around on, if they dont have those, they squish each other and die.

also, that thing is too small for 50 crickets.. you need alot of space, more than you think is normal for crickets.

i keep 500 crickets in tubs that are 2ftx3ft with tons of cartons for them.

 

[stalincat]

Oh i see. Thank you, will get bigger tubs for them

 

[laurie]

I on the other hand order crickets 4,000 at a time to get wholesale prices. I put 2,000 in each of my 2 bins. They are about 18 x 22 x15 inches. They have mesh lids. Each day my crickets get cricket crack (dry food) some kind of fresh veggie, and water crystals. They get almost as many egg crates as will fit. I alternate how the egg crates are put in, pointy egg holder on top, round part that is one the bottom. etc. I do make sure they are in a warm room and kept fairly clean - sorry but I am not a nut about it. Out of each of the tubs of 2,000 crickets I may lose 100 to 150 crickets, or a total of 300 out of 4,000. Not bad for me. My crickets are 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch.