12 more pets!!!!

[Shaun J]

tonight i get to rescue 12 more pets.......crickets!!!the CGD isnt working so ill just use crix,can anyone give me a basic rundown on cricket care?

[Marla]

How do you mean, the CGD "isn't working"?

[Shaun J]

he wont eat it

[Shelby]

I keep mine in a large rubbermaid bin with holes drilled in the top. I save paper towel and toilet paper tubes as well as cardboard eggcrates for them to crawl around in. I feed them dog food (they love it!) and a mixture of cereals (puffed rice/wheat, oats, cheerios, and sunflower seeds)

For water you can give them either fresh veggies/fruit every day (pain in the butt!) or soak a cotton ball in water (easier but they'll lay their eggs in it and they won't hatch) or, what I do is take a lid from a margarine tub or similar, and I cut a piece of window screen to fit in it, and put some water in it. The window screen is to keep them from drowning. If there is a drop of water, they'll find it and drown themselves in it!

If you wish to breed them, put a rather shallow dish of dirt (with no fertilizers or any other chemicals added to it) in the bin, make sure they can get into it. I put some of the paper towel tubes as ramps into it. If the crickets are mature, you should see lots of tiny eggs that look like mini grains of rice in the dirt within a week. If the crickets are kept warm, they'll lay more eggs. To hatch them, I recommend moving the dish to a separate bin and incubating them with either a heat pad underneath, or a light above. Just don't let it dry out!

Hope this helps.

[Shaun J]

thanx,now help me think of names!!

(i know,i know,im crazy)

[Shelby]

lol! Crix only live 6 weeks or so you know.

Honestly though.. I spoil my crickets. I even enjoy watching them. They're quite interesting actually.

!

[Marla]

he wont eat it

Have you tried dabbing it on his nose? Mixing it with babyfood? Tried different flavors of babyfood?

[Shaun J]

i mix it with baby food,put some on his nose,and then i come to see it all over the place.i heard that crix are healthier too

[Brandon.O]

Hmm, i really dont think of food items as pets.......lol

For names........Meal#1, Meal#2, Meal# 3 ,etc etc etc.Becuase....well, thats what they are going to become

[Marla]

Crickets are "healthier" because only something alive can be "healthy," despite the frequent misuse of the word in place of the appropriate word, "healthful." In case you meant that crickets are more healthful for the gecko, that is untrue. A proper diet for cresties includes both fruit and protein, whether through the easy way of doing it with CGD or the more complex way of balancing insects with fruits and nutritional supplements.

You put food on his nose and he doesn't lick it off? Is it cold or hot, or around room temp? Have you tried peach and apricot and banana flavors at the least to see what he likes? When you put it on his nose are you holding him or are you poking him on the nose as he sits in his home, something that might appear to him to be an assault?

What I'm driving at here is that I think you're giving up too easily on the CGD, which is truly the easiest way to give him a balanced diet and keep him healthy. There are, undoubtably, things you can try that you haven't tried yet and should before giving up.