I admit ... I'm a coward!!!

I know I'm going to (probably) have to live with it - but they are so big, scary, and can bite and I'm terrified of them.

Am I talking about my monitor? No...... I truly hate those great big black adult crickets!! So much so I think I have a phobia of them.

I ordered 500 of them the other day - 100 XL locusts costs the same as 500 adult crix so I thought it would be a good idea to save money. They turned up yesterday so I carefully tipped the bag into Sav's insect mixing bowl with his vitamin powder stuff and it went (mostly) OK - I didn't have to touch them and no escapees. Later on I opened up their bag to add bug food and such and about 4 of them (one was truly ENORMOUS) jumped out and got down my T-shirt :O so there was I hopping up and down in the kitchen yelling my head off and ripping off my shirt (I knew it was in there somewhere).

So, there's my goofy confession. I have to live with these big black buggers or go back to the expensive (but for me handleable) pretty yellow locusts.

I don't know how you can handle those giant roaches, Jake - UGH!! :O

I had a smallish cricket go down my shirt once and take a chunk (well a bite) out of one of my .... well my chest. THEY HURT!!!

I don't know what you keep them in but I do know of a great way to catch the crickets with out getting bitten and with out them getting out.

A PVC pipe just long enough to fit from the floor to the top of the container you keep them in. have a cap on the top of the PVC and aply a bug stoper tape to the out side of the pipe to keep them from climbing up it. I dont really know what the tape is called, the shop I worked for called it "Bug Stoper".

Just befor you want to feed your lizard/s place the pipe in the cage/ what ever you keep them in at an angle so they will crawl up the tube. after you have them you can add the dust place a cap on the open entrence and shake well. LOL but that is fully up to you.
http://www.hexibase.com/~jessica/pvc.gif

and there you have it ... no crickets trying to touch you. I hate them and they give me the hebe gebes :O too. so you dont have to buy the grass hoppers and spent more money.

lol! Well I was always one of those kids that would go traipsing around swamps looking for the biggest ugliest bug I could find to play with.

I don't like crickets because they stink and they die at the drop of a hat. I was bit once by a big one when I was little.. I didn't think they were cute anymore after that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Razaiel

I don't know how you can handle those giant roaches, Jake - UGH!! :O

---

Actually the roaches he uses get as big as crickets, and can't climb. Occasionally they will jump, but not much.

If I had a lizard I would be using them all the time.

If I could find roaches here in Florida to buy to set up a colony, I would. It seems a lot of people can't ship into Florida, I guess we have enough bugs.
I feed the crickets, and I HATE them, but for a wholey different reason. I hate the chirping. Crickets are native here, and very populous and I hated them chirping outside my open bedroom window whileI tried to sleep. It carried over, I still hate the chirping. If I get 3/4 crickets, they don't seem to chirp however, so I have a happy medium. Too bad there isn't a size that would make them not icky for you.
I just discovered that if you keep sealing the crickets into a rubbermaid tote, they die. So I am using a different tote with a screen lid for the next box.
I was buying a box of 1000, and they would only last a week, since by the end of a week they would all be dead. However, the few that Moggie the monitor DIDN'T eat, have BRED in her cage, and there are teeny crickets in there. Any way for me to get them out? They crawl all over her. Will they climb into a tube too?
I am SOOOO getting a tube also, since getting the crickets OUT of the tub usually sets a half dozen loose in the house.
Wolfy

Wow this is like the rat in the garage post kind weird how something we deal with every day can if they catch you off gaurd freak you out :crix:

I shall try your idea, Jessie - they come in a big sack like bag which the locusts seem to live in happily for a week or more so I think I'll get a proper container and use the pipe idea that would be very handy.


Well the pix Jake has posted of his roaches (can't get them hardly here in the UK) they looked a lot bigger than the adult crickets, but maybe the picture is blown up:crix:

It's stupid of me, I can touch most other things and the thing most likely to do me damage is the one I'm feeding the :crix: to!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Razaiel

Well the pix Jake has posted of his roaches (can't get them hardly here in the UK) they looked a lot bigger than the adult crickets, but maybe the picture is blown up:crix:

---

Those were my discoids which I got rid of. They were about 2 1/2" and I never got any babies from them. The latteralis I have now are about as big as a cricket but faster. Awesome breeders and sweet feeders.

i hate crickets. not because they're hard to take care of but because they bite, and they ended up breeding in my ackies cage.

Raz, i reccomend you get some lobster roaches. they're AWESOME. no stink, super easy to keep alive + breed and they're meatier then crickets. they're kinda weird for the first couple of hours but you get used to them and they become interesting.

That tube/ pipe should work in the cages as well. You might have to take everything out of the cage that they could hide in/on. rocks, logs, fake plants,ect...ect... That leaves the pipe as the only hiding place for them and you should be able to remove most of them in a single sweep. It might take a few tries but to keep your lizards form getting munched on is the most important thing.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jessie_k_pythons

I had a smallish cricket go down my shirt once and take a chunk (well a bite) out of one of my .... well my chest. THEY HURT!!!

---

I hate when that happens ... sounds like my trip to Subway yesterday for lunch! :P

-adam

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jessie_k_pythons

That tube/ pipe should work in the cages as well. You might have to take everything out of the cage that they could hide in/on. rocks, logs, fake plants,ect...ect... That leaves the pipe as the only hiding place for them and you should be able to remove most of them in a single sweep. It might take a few tries but to keep your lizards form getting munched on is the most important thing.

---

Yes, that is a good idea to take out all the other hiding spots - that would work well :) Thanks for your advice.

Jake - I just can't get roaches here in the UK - I've never even found them online - once one of our reptile stores had luck and got a bunch of normal ones (I think) in and my beardie loved them - since then, nada anywhere.

Locusts are definitely meatier than crickets, and they're supposed to have more nutrients or whatever in them - Sav definitely prefers them too he's much more enthusiastic - his attitude to crix is like, oh well - them again, but locusts go in and they're swallowed up like candy. Some crickets escape in the viv and turn up later. I hope he eats them eventually I don't want them breeding in there or munching on him in the night - but I think sav skins are more armour-plated than dragon skins.

I'll see how it goes but I can see myself going back to locusts when I have an unlimited supply of money ;)

I haven't fed crickets in about 3 months now and I love it!!! Blatta lateralis and mealies is all I have anymore besides w/c bugs

Sav won't eat mealies :( I'm getting more confident with the crix now - and he seems happier about them too. I'll still get him locusts as well though but not so often.

My sav loves mealies if I give him a whole bowl of them. He dig in and they go flying everywhere. So funny watching a nearly 3' monitor eat a 1" long worm

I wonder if mine has eaten some and I didn't know - they do bury themselves in the substrate and I never see them again. Would they have died in there or could he have dug them up later?