Cricket Virus

jannb

Chameleon Enthusiast
Well the cricket virus has hit my supplier. I called this morning and they have lost 90% of their crickets and will be getting in the band crickets soon. However they were able to supply me with the thousand that I needed.
 
Well the cricket virus has hit my supplier. I called this morning and they have lost 90% of their crickets and will be getting in the band crickets soon. However they were able to supply me with the thousand that I needed.

That really sucks. I have read though that the virus that is going around affects banded crickets as well. I hope they do not get infected as well at your supplier.
 
Several of my suppliers have been hit as well.

I haven't had crickets in over 2 months.

Thankfully everyone enjoys roaches.
 
Well the cricket virus has hit my supplier. I called this morning and they have lost 90% of their crickets and will be getting in the band crickets soon. However they were able to supply me with the thousand that I needed.
yup. i go through the same supplier as you jann. i called them last week and i was notified of the virus. i had to use a different supplier for the time being.
 
It really sucks when things like that happen. We have been lucky to not be affected. I hope everything works out with the new crickets.
 
I've heard that every time one of the larger cricket farms has an outbreak it costs them from several hundred thousand to a half million dollars in lost business and expenses to get set back up. Do that a few times a year and it's easy to see why they are going out of business.
 
Well the cricket virus has hit my supplier. I called this morning and they have lost 90% of their crickets and will be getting in the band crickets soon. However they were able to supply me with the thousand that I needed.

And you still bought from them with a known virus? You have more guts than I do . I would never feed my chams bugs from a source with a known outbreak. Never.

I wouldn't even want to touch them. I certainly wouldn't introduce the possibility of bringing that home.


You are a risk taker Jannb. But you are also a realty investor in Florida, so I can see why you'd do that.
;)


Please tell us you didn't feed them to your chams.
 
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Acheta parvovirus? Do not panic. This is absolutely no problem for chameleons. You feed viruses and bacterias with EVERY food. Just problem is when you feed some those are pathogen for chameleon but this one is not for sure.
The only problem is that you purchase crickets those will die very quickly.
 
Well the cricket virus has hit my supplier. I called this morning and they have lost 90% of their crickets and will be getting in the band crickets soon. However they were able to supply me with the thousand that I needed.

The thousand ?!? How many critters do you have?
 
Acheta parvovirus? Do not panic. This is absolutely no problem for chameleons. You feed viruses and bacterias with EVERY food. Just problem is when you feed some those are pathogen for chameleon but this one is not for sure.
The only problem is that you purchase crickets those will die very quickly.

So then by this thinking, would it be safe to eat beef with mad cow? I mean we can eat it and our tummies will be full. But how long before the side effects present themselves?

I think feeding any animal with a food item that has a known virus that kills its host is just asking for problems.
But maybe not.
 
Mad cow can cross the species barrier. As far as we know, the cricket virus currently can't, but that's only if it doesn't mutate. Who knows if and when that might be.:eek:
 
That's a bad example, we know this virus doesn't jump from invertebrates to vertebrates. It's not like mad cow disease, which we know does go from mammal to mammal. But your chameleon is never going to catch the cricket virus. Just like thankfully my chameleons don't get the flu every time I have it.
 
That's a bad example, we know this virus doesn't jump from invertebrates to vertebrates. It's not like mad cow disease, which we know does go from mammal to mammal. But your chameleon is never going to catch the cricket virus. Just like thankfully my chameleons don't get the flu every time I have it.

Good points, but like a lot of issues here short answers aren't enough.

So, if a cricket that is housed with a virus and the fellow crickets are dying, how does that effect the bacteria levels in the environment? Lots of dead anything has a side effect. That side effect of decomposing crickets(as in this case) is nasty bacteria. Lets take it a step farther.

Now you're feeding your beloved chameleons with insects with bacterial levels that are unusually high, in addition to a host killing virus. Can your chameleon's immune system handle that?

Perhaps.

But be prepared to get a good case of mouth and tongue issues.

It's difficult enough with healthy feeders, adding a known issue into the mix is just risky, that's all.

Just saying the virus can't be transferred is by no means is best practices.
 
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Bwahaha! Chameleons are not even in the same phylum as crickets...there is a 99.99% chance that it will not cross the phylum barrier. Basic bio... nuff said.
 
Actually...as much as I'd love to agree that the cricket virus is not something to worry about...there is evidence that invertebrate viruses can in fact infect lizards. In this case it was a cricket virus that infected a hoehnelli. I do not want to cause a panic with this. It is still very unlikely that healthy chameleons will be infected clinically. The virus in the article is an iridovirus in field crickets, whereas the paralysis virus is a parvovirus (much, much less likely to jump hosts like that) and in a different cricket species.

Experimental Infection of Crickets (Gryllus Bimaculatus) with an Invertebrate Iridovirus Isolated from a High-Casqued Chameleon (Chamaeleo Hoehnelii)

I would not be overly concerned with feeding the possibly infected crickets off, and I'm sure many of us already have since this virus has hit many suppliers in the last year.
 
Just because the cricket virus probably cant leap from one species to another, doesn't mean we should still feed the infected bugs off.

Better safe than sorry.
 
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