I wanna see your feeders!

parisaurusrex

parisaurusrex

New Member
I desperately despise having to go into a large chain store like Petco or Petsmart to get food for Ziggster. It's expensive, it's a waste because half of the crickets/worms die anyways, and I just don't want to support them!
I've been doing research on colonies and keeping large amounts of bugs (like 500 ct.) but I'm a visual person, and I need pictures! I want to see your set ups for your creepy crawlies, and what has worked/hasn't worked for you! please :D
 
You can also do a search on You tube. There are a lot of good videos on there especially for roaches. I think the one video was by the roach hut and I tried to set up my roach bins like they did.
 
Illl go take some pics in a few, I have about 4000 crickets total right now; about 800 of these are in in a 10 gallon tank with 2 gutloading stations, these are first out to be fed to the animals, I take 50-60 at a time from here to a smaller feeding container that has one feeding stations and calcium enriched water crystals, and more advanced gutloading foods, these are my chams/geckos crickets for the week. The other 3200 are in a plastic bin with 3 gutloading stations.

I hate petsmart, I always go by and see that sad chams in the dry 2x2 glass aquariums, sitting in the bottom, surrounded by poop. I hate it...Now I refuse to go in there.

Just make the jump, order from premium crickets, or ghanns. Its such a stress off. 12cents a cricket is a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I paid $60 bucks for 4000 crickets, 100 dubias and 50 butterworms my last order, plus shipping!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just get 500 to start, or 1000, go by walmart, buy a plastic bin, cut out the sides and duct tape on aluminum mesh to vent the smell (this smell is what kills them off) and use tupper ware lids to put your gut loading food on (this is all per sandras blog). Go by your local super market and ask for egg crates, or buy some eggs (the 2 dozen kind and put them in a big bowl. I did, we are still eating omelettes. I only did this once when I bought the bin, lol. Ugh no more effing eggs, ughhhhhhhhhhh.

I also hit up the diner called Millies, she gives me egg crates now on sundays, its only 2 or 3, but its fresh crates, with no frass on them. I live in a small town and pretty much everyone knows me because of my profession, so im getting crafty. I also use strips of card board folded over like tee-pees. And per sandras blog, toilet paper rolls. Ill go take a pic. and post it in a few.:p
 
PoshPenny said:
Illl go take some pics in a few, I have about 4000 crickets total right now; about 800 of these are in in a 10 gallon tank with 2 gutloading stations, these are first out to be fed to the animals, I take 50-60 at a time from here to a smaller feeding container that has one feeding stations and calcium enriched water crystals, and more advanced gutloading foods, these are my chams/geckos crickets for the week. The other 3200 are in a plastic bin with 3 gutloading stations.

I hate petsmart, I always go by and see that sad chams in the dry 2x2 glass aquariums, sitting in the bottom, surrounded by poop. I hate it...Now I refuse to go in there.

Just make the jump, order from premium crickets, or ghanns. Its such a stress off. 12cents a cricket is a lot!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I paid $60 bucks for 4000 crickets, 100 dubias and 50 butterworms my last order, plus shipping!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just get 500 to start, or 1000, go by walmart, buy a plastic bin, cut out the sides and duct tape on aluminum mesh to vent the smell (this smell is what kills them off) and use tupper ware lids to put your gut loading food on (this is all per sandras blog). Go by your local super market and ask for egg crates, or buy some eggs (the 2 dozen kind and put them in a big bowl. I did, we are still eating omelettes. I only did this once when I bought the bin, lol. Ugh no more effing eggs, ughhhhhhhhhhh.

I also hit up the diner called Millies, she gives me egg crates now on sundays, its only 2 or 3, but its fresh crates, with no frass on them. I live in a small town and pretty much everyone knows me because of my profession, so im getting crafty. I also use strips of card board folded over like tee-pees. And per sandras blog, toilet paper rolls. Ill go take a pic. and post it in a few.:p
Click to expand...


This is wonderful, thank you! do you keep them in the same room as all your reptilian children? I'm going to have to put them in my garage or green house, due to limited space in my house! Just curious because of the smell, they reeeeeeek when I have about 30 in the cricket keeper! I can't imagine what 4000 smells like :eek: Do you keep your dubias the same way? And your butter worms?
 
I keep mine in large Rubbermaid containers. As mentioned, it's a good thing to cut a large vent on the sides and out of the lid, and tape on metal screen. I've got two for crickets, each one holds 1000 easily, and two for dubia. You can buy bulk egg cartons online cheap. The dubia don't foul theirs up, but I always replace the crates in the cricket bins after I've fed off all of the 1000 in a bin.
I order 1000 small and 1000 med/large so that one batch can grow while I feed off the larger batch. This keeps reordering down to a minimum. The dubia multiply on their own so I don't have to replace them.

Leland
 
I also do not like to use pet shops for my feeders- who knows what the feed those if at all !
here are my 2 roach bins, I have 2 dubia bins, and one banana roach/Isopod bin
I keep a heat source under each one, I feed them daily, also per Sandra's blog - as you can see- they do very well - I actually have the issue of TO MANY - I started with one bin, that went to 2 , and now those 2 are so crowded, I need to break them down, and that will make 4! - I feed them a dry mix, and a wet, I keep the food at one end, the crates at the other , so they can hide or eat at will - my bins are like the recycle bins you can get, they have screen lids - the banana one is the same, but it has 2" holes on each end for venting , they need a sub-straight of dirt, coconut fiber, and originally I added water crystals , but only once- I keep their dry food right by a vent, so it does not get moldy due to how humid you need to keep them, and then I feed the wet food under the bark- I kinda stack it to make little voids for them to hide in - once you get these started, you will NEVER buy a pet shop roach again - I do keep crix, but only like 1,000 at a time - so not a big crix feeder - and also raise stick bugs, mantis, silks, snails, meal worms and super worms - so as you can see - growing your own food can be almost as addictive as the chams :p
 

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I raise, horn worms, silk worms, isopods, snails, dubia roaches and red runner roaches. Here are my set ups. (I havent bred the super worms yet because they are just easier to buy and not very expensive).

The shelves on the metal rack have flex watt heat tape mats on dimmers for the roaches. The screen cage in the closet is for horn worm moths, that tray in there has the horn worm pupae it in now. The incubator in the closet is for my silk worm eggs. I also have a mini frig that I keep all of the supplements and bug food in.

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Here is my corner with my bugs. The two big bins are roaches, Turks and Dubias. The smaller containers are silks, horns, wax, phoenix. The crickets are in another room in similar large containers.
 

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Lol Michelle yeh, me too, I keep mine in my laundry room, after seeing his set up I feel shame too. I'm gonna go sweep now. Jeez. -hangs head-
 
These photos are perfect, thank you all so much! Just a few questions -
Temp/humidity for dubias? I've got my tub, going out to get egg crates and what not today, then ordering some tomorrow!
Also - How often do you clean it? How do you clean it if its crawling with critters? How do you feed them/hydrate them? Just chuck some veggies in there every few days?
Also, keep the pics coming!! I'm totally a visual person, the photos inspire me!
 
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ferretinmyshoes said:
Here's how I keep mine in bulk (1000) and it works very successfully (and inexpensively):
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/ferretinmyshoes/511-keeping-crickets.html

full


Also here is a list of the online cricket suppliers and their prices and shipping policies to help you pick a vendor:
https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/ferretinmyshoes/849-online-cricket-suppliers.html

It's way easier than going to the store all the time!
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this is fantastic! thank you!
 
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Oh man ok my feeders are nothing fancy I've gotten creative with substrate for these stinkers. These are my crickets.
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http://img.tapatalk.com/d/
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I take a fork and scrape the inside of boxes so they can get grip and not slip off. I am starting to feel like a crack fein looking for egg cartons at local places. "Hey..hey you guys got any egg crates, got any you don't want, oh for what? Um... My crickets..for my chameleon, I've got 4000 in my laundry room"

I'm getting funny looks. So I'm getting crafty. Anyway that's my crappy set up. Piglets setup makes my cricket set up look like skid row. Yeesh...

They get new substrate every two weeks. New gutload every three days. Right now they just got collard greens, red potatoes, bananas, baby rice cereal, cricket crack, carrots, Swiss chard and oranges. The gutload before that was a spring mix with blueberries, raspberries and yellow squash and cricket crack and oranges.
 
PoshPenny said:
Oh man ok my feeders are nothing fancy I've gotten creative with substrate for these stinkers.
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Thats genius! I'm sure I'll run out of egg crates, but I have been saving up my wrapping paper tubes ;) ha! How often do you clean it out?

I"m gunna catch a little break with the heavy work load this next week (i work retail, so pre-christmas has been nutso) so i plan to get my feeder bins all prepped, and my bugs ordered! Thanks so much for the photos, I love them all!
 
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