Probably a stupid question, but....

[veeneck]

Well, this is going to sound really dumb, but I have a problem. I recently got a bearded dragon in addition to my chameleon and between feeding the two of them, some big crickets have escaped into my apartment. They are now chiming away every night...is there any way to capture escaped crickets, or do you just have to wait till they die of old age?

I would rather capture them alive and feed 'em to my critters, but I am sure open to using a trap if I have to. Will a roach hotel work? Anybody have any ideas out there??

thanks,

Victoria

 

[Cherron]

I wouldn't use anything poison. You never know if one of your animals will get ahold of one that has been exposed to the toxins. What I do is buy the sticky boards used to catch mice and place them around my house. Once when i had about 500 crickets get loose all at once, i set up a heat light on the floor and turned all the lights out. About 2 hours later a few hundred crickets had gathered under the light and i just vacuumed them up.

As for catching them live, i would think that if you cleaned your vacuum out really well and then vacuumed them up, then you could just pull them outta the dust cup (assuming it is bagless) and re-gutload them.

 

[lele]

haha! Sorry, don't mean to laugh but most of us have been down this road - the escapee adult male cricket! (only males "sing" by rubbing a membrane in their hind wings - the ladies are quiet)

In general, crickets like warm areas with food and water. I have caught roach escapees by setting up a 1/2lb berry carton (the green cardboard similar to egg carton material) with some of their favorite foods: (carrot, orange slices, romaine lettuce) placed inside. Next morning they are there snoozing. So if yo have a general idea of where they are you can give this a try.

You can also just keep an eye/ear out and try to catch them by hand. If I have a very large shipment of crix with many extras, I will purposefully pick out the adult males and toss them outside for the birds.

good luck!

 

[dragonbreeder]

Jeez - I have some really really great insect escapee stories. The worst was the fiy episode. I had 2000 fly cocoons that hatched out before expected and when I opened the box, instead of pupae, thousands of flies invaded my home. To make a long story short I eventually got them outside, and you won't believe this, but my car windows were open, and within an hour ALL of them went into the open windows and were sitting in the car.

When I left for work shortly thereafter, they all fled the vehicle as I pulled out of my driveway (windows open of course). There were 2 township employees working on our street who saw these thousands of flies fleeing my car, and I will never forget the look on their faces. It was the Amityville horror car...

That story is actually a lot longer.

Here is another good one. I had a couple of chameleon friends back in the 90's that used to get a HUGE baby cricket order regularly, it was about 10K, I beleive that came in a large box. The old couple next-door (these were connected town-homes) were very mean and nasty. Well, one day the USPS delivered the cricket order to the mean old couple mistakenly. You already figured out what happened next - they did not even bother to read the label, and thought it was their package. When the guy opened the box thousands and thousands of 1/4 crickets poured out. Needlesss to say he panicked and thre the box across the room, making a bad situation even worse! In the end, an exterminator had to be called... I smile everytime I remember that story.

Anyway, a great way to catch these crickets is a nice shop-vac. When you hear them behind your bed or other furniture, just stick in the hose and suck them out.

Lastly, on a Xmas long ago, I knocked over my cricket bin without noticing and went to the store. When i got back there were crickets everywhere! Sadly for them I grabbed my upright vaccum and went to town.

Moral of the story, build a cricket-proof cham cage!

 

[MWheelock]

Good stories

 

[kinyonga]

What I have done is get a container that they can't climb out of...select a branch that has smaller branches going off in different directions. Lean it against the container so that the main branch touches the floor and one or more of the smaller ones overhang the container. Put food in the container. The crickets will climb the branch and eventually fall off the smaller ones into the container...where they will happily stay to eat the food. Hope this description is clear enough!

Good stories! Bet between us we could write a book!

 

[cookiegirl]

Dragon Breeder that was so funny about the flies. I have never have that happened, but I have had crickets escape in my garage when I am transferring them from the box to the aquarium. I do not think I have ever been successful with out escapees.