Anyone get drastically oversized crickets from Ghann's?

[JCDenton]

I grouped up with some others to order from Ghann's and save on shipping costs, and my part of the order was for 1K 3/8 crickets. The crickets I received were WAY larger than they were supposed to be, about 75% of them 5/8 and the rest evenly split between 1/2 and 3/4. Now obviously this doesn't work for feeding young chameleons because a 5/8 cricket has 4.62 times the body mass as a 3/8 cricket. The person who actually placed the order emailed them and this is what they said, basically unconcerned that what they shipped was useless for its intended purpose:

We apologize if you were disappointed with the size crickets you received. We never like for a customer to be unhappy and we try to accurately represent our products to the best of our ability. For this reason we choose to use a “measurement” (3/4 inch, 5/8 inch, ½ inch, etc.) for our cricket descriptions, whereas many other cricket farms use an “age” (1 week, 2 week, etc). We feel that a measurement is more meaningful to the average purchaser, especially since different farms may grow crickets at different rates. Our 1/4" cricket may be 10 days old whereas the same SIZE cricket from another producer may be 14 days old.

In selecting crickets for orders we strive to be as close to the correct measurement as possible. This can be challenging when you consider that crickets, like all living things, grow at different rates, and with each order we are trying to select a quantity of crickets that are all an exact measurement. Although we have many quality control procedures in place and we exercise care when choosing the sizes, there may be times when the all of the crickets in one production bin are not exactly uniform in size - some may be slightly smaller or slightly larger than others. There is a very slight difference, for example, between a ½ inch cricket and a 3/8 inch cricket ( just take a ruler and look at the difference in those two measurement lines). Now, imagine trying to select 100 or 1,000 hopping crickets of a particular size!

Is getting the wrong size just par for the course with Ghann's? I had only used them once before on some 1/8 crickets, and had been getting perfectly sized 1/4 crickets from LLLreptile since then. But the 1/4 crickets are just too small now so I wanted to go up a size, and LLL doesn't offer 3/8. I should not be hearing chirping sounds out of my cricket bin on an order of 3/8 crickets...

 

[jannb]

When I use to order from Ghann's back when I had the babies their crickets were always really small regardless of the size I ordered.

 

[laurie]

All my crickets come from Ghann and that is a lot of crickets. I have had 2 or 3 times when crickets were either a bit small or a bit large. i have been ordering form them at least every other week for over 2 years. that is not a bad track record in my book. Sorry to hear you had a problem.

 

[redmoonbettas]

gahns so called crickets

ive orded from many times and been done great one time or two and turn around get the shaft the next two times. I dont order form them any more but i hear a lot of people say how great they are? as matter of fact i dont oreder any thing off line like this any more because you never know what your going to get. i buy my bugs right down the road for $15.00 a thousand crix / wax worms $9.00 even for around 250 count. the last time i orderded pinheads 75 percent were dead. i notified got another shipment it had about 200 pinheads in it. of which about half were dead. so out of 1000 pins i only got mabye 350 pins these companys are for the birds only.
wallshaker

 

[BocaJan]

I have been ordering from them for a couple years and am satisfied. I order several different sizes so a slight variation doesn't matter much. I did try to order the 3/8ths once and experienced a similiar situation, so now I order either 1/4 or 1/2's. I find that the 1/2's are perfect for a move up from the 1/4's. Don't order pins...they just dont' last through the mail. Better to use ff or grow your own pins. It is easy.

 

[JCDenton]

I went ahead and emailed them personally (guess I was more persuasive than my friend?) and they agreed to send another batch. Hopefully these are OK. I attached a pic of what I was dealing with. The circled cricket is one that was left over from before and actually measures to 3/8 putting it next to a penny how they do on their site. That's a good size for my cham with room to grow a bit. The others are what they sent me, you can see that they could easily impact my cham. They seem to think I was upset about variance in size from cricket to cricket when really they're all just huuuuge.

But it's all good, as long as they send out the others so I get something my cham can actually eat. Maybe my friend didn't explain the problem well enough.

 

[JCDenton]

I have been ordering from them for a couple years and am satisfied. I order several different sizes so a slight variation doesn't matter much. I did try to order the 3/8ths once and experienced a similiar situation, so now I order either 1/4 or 1/2's. I find that the 1/2's are perfect for a move up from the 1/4's. Don't order pins...they just dont' last through the mail. Better to use ff or grow your own pins. It is easy.

So were your 3/8 orders larger than your 1/2 orders?

 

[carol5208]

I use L & H bait in Florida and their crickets were always true to size.

 

[LLLReptile]

Just an FYI to all who were asking - we do now offer 3/8" size crickets. They are on our website as of now About a 3 week old. All our crickets are sent Fed Ex overnight. Monday is a holiday though, so next shipping day is on Tuesday. Thanks!

Scott
LLLReptile & Supply
www.LLLReptile.com

 

[JCDenton]

I got the replacement order and they were the correct size, so hats off to them for correcting it. There HAD to have been some kind of mistake with the first ones. The size difference is so huge that nobody would confuse them.

p.s. I boxed them back up if someone near here wants them. My cats are diligently hunting down the escapees from that process.

 

[Cainschams]

ive orded from many times and been done great one time or two and turn around get the shaft the next two times. I dont order form them any more but i hear a lot of people say how great they are? . the last time i orderded pinheads 75 percent were dead. i notified got another shipment it had about 200 pinheads in it. of which about half were dead. so out of 1000 pins i only got mabye 350 pins

Well, I hate to say it but Im glad I am not the only one this happens too when ordering from there I found a newer company that has done great these last two times. Lets hope they are consistant.

I wont be surprised if this thread is deleted though.