Casket_Case
Avid Member
Does it matter where your crickets come from? There’s a fishing store really close by and they sell crickets for really cheap… would it be okay if I bought from there?
Fishing Store Crickets
- Thread starter Casket_Case
- Start date
Snuits
Chameleon Enthusiast
No this would be a hard pass.... You want to order them from an insect breeder for reptiles. You are more likely to introduce parasites to your chameleon buying them from the fishing store.
nightanole
Chameleon Enthusiast
Figure out who they buy from. There isnt true "lizard" crickets. A lot of local places around here sell tophat crickets, and they are "bait" since the 1950's but marketed towards lizards about 20 years ago. But you have to have a "cricket license" in america to sell any crickets period, so there is at least some minimum standard.
Casket_Case
Avid Member
Sweet, so if they’re tophat crickets and their cage looks decently clean and the crickets seem healthy should it be okay?
Mountain Dragon
Chameleon Enthusiast
I wouldn’t since it’s from a bait shop they like Beman said have a chance of producing way more parisites then a reliable source. I bet since it’s from a fishing store they don’t really take care of there crickets or dare if they get sick since they will just be used for bait.
nightanole
Chameleon Enthusiast
Well lets be honest here, you think petsmart or petco clean out their crickets?
As for "parasites", you get them from other lizards, not from "insects". Its why no one has a problem with wild caught insects other than "contamination" from pesticides. Parasites in the cricket are not going to hurt the lizard, even if the horsehair worm looks like it crawled out of hell.
What you do have to watch out for is mites etc, as they can wipe out your colony if you are growing your own insects.
But the bait shop knows those are little nickels and dimes walking around, and they tend to hose out the bait box just like they do the other baits. But you also dont want to feed them off right away. Maybe give them a few days. The bait shop is not going to be feeding the crickets, and the bait shop "worms" are going to be very cold and in saw dust half the time.
Just check out the bait shop, see how they are storing the crickets and where they are coming from. My local bait shops used to let me "buy a box" for $10-20. So my box would just come in the 10 stack along with the bait shops and a few other weirdo that for some reason wanted 500-1000 crickets for fishing.
If the shop is keeping them in an easy to hose out white plastic tub, thats good setup. If they are kept in a wooden cabinet, i would pass, they are not bunnies and the cabinets are not easy to clean, and odds are have "cleaner crews" that you dont want.
Mountain Dragon
Chameleon Enthusiast
not at all my petco keeps them in a nasty plastic bin on a self and it is layered with poop but my petsmart is pretty good they keep there crickets in a black tub with etc and I’ve seen them clean out the cage and gutload but not every petsmart is like that
Mountain Dragon
Chameleon Enthusiast
Sorry I was just going off of what Beman said because it seemed pretty logical that the fish shop wouldn’t take care of their crickets as good as a breeder that can ship to u, I would still say I bet they aren’t in the best condition because the fish won’t digest them all the way before you cut of the guts and clean em but idk really know
Casket_Case
Avid Member
Yeah this is pet supplies plus a chain and there’s no other pet stores around. Only place to buy crickets is this fish shop (which is a successful brick & mortar on Main Street) or Pet Supplies Plus
nightanole
Chameleon Enthusiast
Im with Beman, in non winter, the best option is still to order a 200-500 count box of undersized crickets. Then you can grow them, and get an extra few weeks out of them before they all die. The little guys only have 2 months to live so buying them at 4 weeks because they are "good eatin" size doesnt work so well 
Casket_Case
Avid Member
How do you breed crickets? Is there a thread for it?
nightanole
Chameleon Enthusiast
Its super easy, but requires a lot of bins.
Basically:
1 small bin full of substrate, egg laying substrate is fine.
2-3 other larger bins setup as normal crickets.
You pop adult crickets in the baby bin for a week every cycle
Then once the babies hatch you move them to a normal bin
every 2-3 weeks you put the adults in the egg laying bin for a week
rinse repeat. So basically you have bins that are about 2 weeks apart:
eggs(too wet of an environment for long term adults)
pin heads(too small to sort)
sub adults(normal size but dont chirp)
adults(chirpers)
Snuits
Chameleon Enthusiast
nightanole
Chameleon Enthusiast
The alternative...
Have tarantula named snowball
Snowball doesnt finish dinner
Dinner lays dinner eggs in the cocofiber
soon have agitated snowball and a sea of pinheads
Then have to convince snowball to go on a remote ride so you can clean the cage
Mountain Dragon
Chameleon Enthusiast
Nope! I hate spiders I know tarantulas aren’t a spider
Casket_Case
Avid Member
Wait what if I made a tarantula cage but no tarantula so then it’ll fool the crickets into not needing bins and then they’ll have frick tons o babies
Snuits
Chameleon Enthusiast
Omfg. Hell no. Lol
