Average # of cricket daily/weekly die offs

[TheDOMINATOR]

Hello everyone. Happy owner of a three month old male ambilobe panther and a seven month old male veiled here. Crickets and silk worms are my two staple feeders, along with supers and horns and occasional mealworms and waxes. The panther, Lucas, is still on small crickets while Karma the veiled is on mediums. I house the crickets in two different tubs, both being the "kricket keepers" with the black tubes (which I find super convenient). I completely wash them out weekly and every day I sort of lightly shake the poop out outside in the yard so that it falls through the vents in the roofing of it, making sure to remove any dead crickets I see daily too. I also change the food out every day which is a combination of potatoes, repashy superpig, dinofuel (from a site sponsor here), and the Orange fluker's cubes to keep them hydrated and alive. I plan to include more veggies like kale and carrots in the very near future.

With all that being said, after the first three days or so during which time I see virtually no casualties, I start seeing daily die offs. Probably an average of about 3-4 per day per container (again, I have two). My question is, is this average among people who continually keep a number of crickets? I generally buy 60-100 at a time. If this is more die offs than I should be seeing, is there anything I might do to minimize them? For what I've been paying, each dead cricket is about $.10 going "see you later," so 6-8 per day from the two tubs I keep, over the course of a week, that's somewgere around $3.50 or so I'm just losing...every week. A price I'm willing to pay if it's normal, but something I would definitely like to minimize.

 

[little leaf]

Hello everyone. Happy owner of a three month old male ambilobe panther and a seven month old male veiled here. Crickets and silk worms are my two staple feeders, along with supers and horns and occasional mealworms and waxes. The panther, Lucas, is still on small crickets while Karma the veiled is on mediums. I house the crickets in two different tubs, both being the "kricket keepers" with the black tubes (which I find super convenient). I completely wash them out weekly and every day I sort of lightly shake the poop out outside in the yard so that it falls through the vents in the roofing of it, making sure to remove any dead crickets I see daily too. I also change the food out every day which is a combination of potatoes, repashy superpig, dinofuel (from a site sponsor here), and the Orange fluker's cubes to keep them hydrated and alive. I plan to include more veggies like kale and carrots in the very near future.

With all that being said, after the first three days or so during which time I see virtually no casualties, I start seeing daily die offs. Probably an average of about 3-4 per day per container (again, I have two). My question is, is this average among people who continually keep a number of crickets? I generally buy 60-100 at a time. If this is more die offs than I should be seeing, is there anything I might do to minimize them? For what I've been paying, each dead cricket is about $.10 going "see you later," so 6-8 per day from the two tubs I keep, over the course of a week, that's somewgere around $3.50 or so I'm just losing...every week. A price I'm willing to pay if it's normal, but something I would definitely like to minimize.

do you have a heat source for them ? then need to be warm., and I would not use that orange junk - they need a good gut load , and lots of clean water and heat - I cant say as to what is normal loss- I have 1000 at a time come in- I think they eat the dead ones even tho they have plenty of food , I find "parts" but not many whole dead crix

 

[TheDOMINATOR]

That's interesting. I didn't know the little buggers were cannibals. Yeah, I'm still fairly new to this and have been using the cubes as part of my gut load for now, but like I said I plan to utilize the veggies, particularly ones high in vitamin a, in the near future. Would you recommend like a damp paper towel instead?

As far as heating goes, it's always at least 70F in my house (I don't like the cold) so I've always thought that was good enough if I wasn't aiming to breed.

Thank you for the quick reply.

 

[junglefries]

I buy two 1,000 boxes each month for my adults. I buy the medium (no chirping and grow to almost adults by months end). I put each box in one bin with no lid. Organic spring salad mix (with added whats on hand) makes up the hydration part. Food wise: Flukers cricket food, wheat germ, brewers yeast, Bug Burger (wet and dry), bran flakes, honey, bee pollen,flax seed, spirulina, alfalfa, small amount of roach chow, and then fill in with stuff from Sandrachameleon and the food list on this site. I buy my crix from only one store that I found. I did try every store around here within reason. My losses, are completely unnoticeable. No bright lights or cold floors underneath.