Handling/Dealing With Baby Crickets

[JoshSilba]

Hey all, so my veiled chameleon is two months old and I've only had him for a few days, he is quite tiny as you can imagine so I have been feeding him 1/4" crickets. This is the smallest chameleon I've ever had and by default the smallest crickets I've had to handle. With the larger crickets, I had no problem storing them in a little critter carrier with the plastic tubes that the crickets climb up into, the tubes come out and just give it a few shakes and crickets pour out of them. The carrier is great also because there is plenty of room for sources of food/hydration.

My issue now is with the tiny crickets, they don't really crawl into the tubes, just hang on the bottom of the container. So when I put them in there they can eat just fine but I can't get them out, so the easiest thing for me to do is keep them in the bag so I can just pour some out into my little guy's cup that he eats from, but this makes it tough to properly feed them as the bag just becomes messy and difficult to deal with.

Does anyone have any advice/tips on handling baby crickets, how to make sure they are properly fed while still being easy to access to transfer to my chameleons cup.

Thanks!

 

[Pazuzu100]

With my baby crickets, I put some of the egg carton material that is usually included in their shipment in the cricket holder. they usually congregate at the bottom of these cardboard materials so i shake the pieces of cardboard over some plants and they usually fall off. baby crickets are deffiently a pain in the ass to deal with!

 

[trickedoutbiker]

Take a standard sized (clear, so you can check on the crickets) plastic disposable cup and put some of your gutload material in it such as your kale, mustard greens, or slices of carrot, whatever it may be that you use. If you are using dry grainy gutload, just place the mix inside of a small lid that you can put at the bottom of the cup to keep it all contained in one area. Use one that you can easily grab and pull out with tweezers, such as one of those small white water bottle lids (that's what I used). Now put in your super small crickets that you have, as many as you wish to gutload (just don't overcrowd the cup). Put some sort of lid over the cup with air ventilation so that they can breathe. You can use tin foil, plastic, screen, or whatever you want. Just have a lid so they can't escape! Let them eat for a day or so. When you wish to get them out, reach down into the cup with a pair of tweezers and grab the gutload material and pull it out of the cup. Be careful, and shake it a bit before pulling it out of the cup to rid it of any crickets, or you might find yourself with a bunch of loose insects jumping around your house when you set the used gutload down on the counter or in the trash.

Now with all of the gutload out of the cup, all that should be left is the crickets you are feeding. Use the cup to dump them into the chameleon cage.

Wipe down cup a bit, add more wet and/or dry gutload, add more crickets, and repeat the process again and again until you move up to a bigger cricket size. Easy as pie.

 

[JoshSilba]

Take a standard sized (clear, so you can check on the crickets) plastic disposable cup and put some of your gutload material in it such as your kale, mustard greens, or slices of carrot, whatever it may be that you use. If you are using dry grainy gutload, just place the mix inside of a small lid that you can put at the bottom of the cup to keep it all contained in one area. Use one that you can easily grab and pull out with tweezers, such as one of those small white water bottle lids (that's what I used). Now put in your super small crickets that you have, as many as you wish to gutload (just don't overcrowd the cup). Put some sort of lid over the cup with air ventilation so that they can breathe. You can use tin foil, plastic, screen, or whatever you want. Just have a lid so they can't escape! Let them eat for a day or so. When you wish to get them out, reach down into the cup with a pair of tweezers and grab the gutload material and pull it out of the cup. Be careful, and shake it a bit before pulling it out of the cup to rid it of any crickets, or you might find yourself with a bunch of loose insects jumping around your house when you set the used gutload down on the counter or in the trash.

Now with all of the gutload out of the cup, all that should be left is the crickets you are feeding. Use the cup to dump them into the chameleon cage.

Wipe down cup a bit, add more wet and/or dry gutload, add more crickets, and repeat the process again and again until you move up to a bigger cricket size. Easy as pie.

Now that's the kind of craftiness I needed! I'm definitely going to try this technique, thanks so much!

 

[trickedoutbiker]

Now that's the kind of craftiness I needed! I'm definitely going to try this technique, thanks so much!

No problem. I came up with that lil technique when I too was using super small crickets. I just had 3 different cups I used and just kept rotating the cups out. Day one, I used cup #1 then added more crickets to #1. Next day, I used cup #2 and added more crickets when I was done. Next day, I used cup #3, then added more crickets. On the fourth day, when I got back to cup #1, they had all been gutloading themselves for a couple days and are nice and healthy to feed to the chameleon. If you wish to use more cups or less cups, depending on how many crickets you buy at a time, you many do that as well. Just remember that you will need to change your gutload so it doesn't go bad if it sits in the cup for too many days if you are using lots of cups; that's why I only used 3 cups. I never put more than a days worth of feeders into the same cup because if you do, then when you go to add more fresh gutload, you might squash some of your insects on accident by placing the gutload on top of them because they are so small. It's also a pain in the but to move them out of the way in order to get the water bottle cap down into the cup with the dry gutload in it. Was just a lot easier to make it to where 1 cup was my 1 day worth of feeders.

Hope that helps ya.

 

[JoshSilba]

No problem. I came up with that lil technique when I too was using super small crickets. I just had 3 different cups I used and just kept rotating the cups out. Day one, I used cup #1 then added more crickets to #1. Next day, I used cup #2 and added more crickets when I was done. Next day, I used cup #3, then added more crickets. On the fourth day, when I got back to cup #1, they had all been gutloading themselves for a couple days and are nice and healthy to feed to the chameleon. If you wish to use more cups or less cups, depending on how many crickets you buy at a time, you many do that as well. Just remember that you will need to change your gutload so it doesn't go bad if it sits in the cup for too many days if you are using lots of cups; that's why I only used 3 cups. I never put more than a days worth of feeders into the same cup because if you do, then when you go to add more fresh gutload, you might squash some of your insects on accident by placing the gutload on top of them because they are so small. It's also a pain in the but to move them out of the way in order to get the water bottle cap down into the cup with the dry gutload in it. Was just a lot easier to make it to where 1 cup was my 1 days worth of feeders.

Hope that helps ya.

That's exactly what I was thinking! I think I'm going to set up like 3-4 cups, each with a days worth of crickets in there, and add food to each one, changing out food as needed, and just having little lunchable packs for my lil papi. Sounds like a super easy way to deal with the small crickets.

 

[trickedoutbiker]

changing out food as needed

With only 3-4 cups, with enough gutload, you shouldn't have to change it until the day you use those crickets. Just put in enough leafy greens, apple slices, or whatever for 3-4 days and it will be fine. Most fruits and veggies won't rot in 3-4 days. Berries such as blueberries and strawberries, or super soft fruit like bananas, probably will. So just stick with longer lasting fruits and veggies while the crickets are small, and you wont ever have to worry about replacing their gutload and squashing them until the day you actually need to use that cup.

Lol "lunchable packs"

Cracked me up