crickets : how many to order?

[heartben]

i want to order some crickets tonight so my new cham wont have to wait longer than a day or 2 to eat something decent.

problem is, its my first cham..first animal that east mainly bugs.. never bought feeders before.

SO! help a n00b out and let me know what youd suggest quantity wise for a 3 month old eating 3/8ths nearing 1/2 inch crickets 10-20ish a day.

1500 is a pretty good deal from ghanns but i have a feeling thatll be too many and the will grow faster than he can eat them? maybe im sadly mistaken. would 1000 be good? still too many? bah!

for those who know, please let me know. i was anticipating ordering 3/8th from ghanns if that helps, quantity is what i really need help with. i want to waste as little money and as few crickets as possible.

thanks everyone
-ben

 

[Silkyslim]

I was in your boat with my 1st Cham. I wanted to set up a nice cricket colony and yadda yadda. I ended up spending just as much time as I did with my crickets as I did Samson. I stopped buying so many crickets for a few reasons.

I just didnt need to have so many crickets in my house. They were very loud, so many crickets started to smell if not kept up on all the cleaning. They ate a lot of food. And if you want your gutloads to be as good as possible you will be spending a surprising amount on fresh fruits and veggies, if you don't keep on the food and it spoils or molds or they dont get any then you have crickets that die off and your costs increase a lot once you factor in the dead ones.

All in all I found getting shipments of 250 from them means I get to feed off most of them with less die offs and I don't go through as much gut load.

There are good arguments on both sides of the coin, hope we can hear more opinions.

 

[jade4321]

Hey I gots a opinion. if there is some kind of pet store around where you live, go there and get large crickets, 36-40 crickets. 1000 is WAYYY over board, and they will die quickly. 36 is a number you can use up before they die. hope i helped!

 

[heartben]

No good places locally. This stinks.

 

[espressodude]

heartben: I know exactly what your dealing with as I have a panther just about the same age as your cham. Here's the problem I found, crickets life cycle is around 9 weeks. Even though your cham is growing fast right now it will never keep up with the crickets. I bought 500 and had to get rid of around 1/3 to 1/2 of them as they had gotten to big for my little guy. So you'll just have to experiment and see what works for you. I'm thinking of getting maybe a 6 to 9 month old cham so when the crickets get to big for one their just right for another. That of course is a chameloeoholic speaking.

 

[beef2011]

hmm

im getting one on aug 1st

 

[beef2011]

what type do you have heartben im sorry

 

[Geckoxp]

Or do what I did and get a bearded dragon that will go through about 30 crickets a day...when they get to big she eats them up no matter what size they are

 

[heartben]

ambilobe like 3.5 weeks, actually ill have it tomorrow morning!

i just decided to go ahead and order 500 because 250 was only like 2 dollars cheaper so i figured.. what the heck, get more and if they die or grow to big it was still way cheaper than the store.

although i did have to get some at petsmart, just for tomorrow. my crickets will be here weds from premium crickets (was going to get ghanns but i changed my mind for some reason, honestly cant remember why)

oh yeah, and i was thinking i can just ... ya know... get another cham later on to make it a better deal on crickets. that makes sense..right guys? :-D

 

[SonTigerPantherCham]

Ben, I only order 100 at a time, between the crix, silks, horns and butters, 100 is a good # to keep clean, feed off, gutload well. And that's for 3 panthers, 7, 8 and 10 mo.
I order about every 2 weeks. Seems to work out just right. If something gets too big I give them to my friends beardie!
There are times I have to go to my local mom/pop's to get extra crix though!

 

[heartben]

i dont know what he will be big enough to eat, at least for another like.. month or so.

so itll be all crickets. the shipping has been more than the crickets everywhere ive looked so i havent seen a reason to get fewer than 250. im sure i wont order 500 again im just a bargain hunter i guess?

and since he eats like 15 or 20 a day (3/8th) i think he should be able to get through like 300 of them, probably.