Keeping Feeders Alive??

bhollowell

Member
My chams are fed primarily crickets with occasional superworms and hornworms as a treat. I can keep the superworms alive perfectly easy but I'm really struggling with keeping the crickets. I've got them in a 25 gallon tub with a few egg cartons stacked on each other. Their water gel stuff is on one side and the cricket food is on the other. I'm using Flukers' High Calcium Cricket Diet as the food and the blue cricket quencher gel. I haven't been able to keep them longer than a week without large portions starting to die.
At this point I'm trying to figure out how many crickets I should order to last me a couple weeks for two chameleons. I either order way too many or not enough and they die off too soon. Any suggestions? Also- does anyone have experience with growing hornworms into their adult moth form? I want to see if my chams would eat those too. Thanks!
 
They are farting themselves to death.

At min crickets need a tote with 2 non adjoining side with screen for cross flow air. Egg cartons are fine. water crystals/gel is not recommended, while rare, a dehydrated piece can get stuck to a cricket, an will expand 1000x once its in the cham, and the cham can not break it down. This isnt a "problem" for adults, but they can be hard to pass for babies. Its better to just have a lid with wet food on it, and another lid with dry food.

Also ditch the flukers gut load, if you look at the ingredients its mostly corn and soybean hauls. There are plenty of gut loads sold by this sites sponsors that are just as cheap.

Finally birth to death for a cricket is only about 6 weeks. So if you buy adults they will only live a few weeks tops.

If you and your cham can stand dubia roaches, they are much easier to raise, and live for 6-12 months.
 
Yeah ventilation. And dubia are great high in protein I ordered my last lot pure months ago and I think I've only like had 2 or 3 die so cost affective
 
I had a similar problem because i was putting too many in too small of a container. I put them in a bigger container with plenty of air holes and then they started lasting longer. Also, try picking out the dead ones right when you notice them, they get mushy and nasty if they’re dead in there for too long. Idk if any of that is a solution but just a thought.
 
Not sure why crickets have a high ammonia poop. Unlike dubia, crickets do not "recycle". Maybe because they are omnivores?
Umm... farts are generally methane—not ammonia. Regardless, both ammonia and methane are lighter than air, and should rise above. My crix are well-ventilated and still dying off at a near-50% rate.
 
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