Best dish for crickets? Butter Dishes!

[NeoLeo87]

Hello, all~

I have no idea if others do this or not, but my discovery excited me, so I thought I'd share.

My leo's prefer to hunt their food. They like seeing it move. I find the regular circular dishes to be rather ineffective for crickets. Then I tried butter dishes. The length gives crickets the chance to run back and forth, thus stimulating my geckos excitement and interest.




Again, the bottom half is for medium/small crickets and the top deeper half is for large crickets



I tried both. They work great! I encourage other owners to try this.

 

[s.iker]

why wouldnt the crickets just hop out... O_0 or do you wound them so they cant.....?

 

[NeoLeo87]

If by "wound" you mean remove the back legs so they don't hop, then yes.

I own a 7 month old who is clumsy with hopping crickets, and a 10+ year old who is clumsy from age. Plus, if crickets are free to roam they can just hide in places that the geckos can't reach.

If anyone has a better method to feeding crickets so they are 1) less difficult to catch and 2) less likely to hide in unreachable corners, I would very much like to know.

 

[lbanta]

Hey if those dishes work, fantastic! I also have a challenged hunter and a shallow clear dish that your gecko can see movement in is a great idea. I feel mean but I have to take the back legs and a couple side legs off because my gecko is very challenged. They still wiggle and move. She needs movement to know it is prey but still needs it to be pretty immobile to be able to get it. I tell my self they are food and only feed a couple at a time to make sure she eats them. The shape of the butter dish is nice for your smallish tank. Rectangle just fits better.

 

[NeoLeo87]

I would highly recommend you try butter dishes for a few reasons: 1) it's glass, so they see it every time, and 2) it's glass, so its a smooth surface that they can't run off of (as long as you keep it clean). I never have to remove any legs except the back, and they will hardly ever climb out. I've found if you take some strong tweezers and simply pinch the back legs, they come off very quick and easy (usually).

Nobody actually knows if crickets feel pain the way most animals do. It's been proven that locusts don't, so we assume crickets don't either. I've seen crickets half eaten by others, and they act like they're completely fine... :shock: Zombie crickets! Either way, you gotta remember you're not torturing an organism for fun - you're doing something necessary to feed your pet.