Why are crickets so annoying?

[Animallover562]

I recently got my first ever leopard gecko named Coda and I couldn’t be more happy with her! My only issue is- crickets.
I decided to go with crickets as a staple diet because they are cheap and readily available, it seems like the best option for someone with only one gecko. Ever since the first feeding, I hated crickets. I HATE how they jump and have the ability to bite! They are also very hard to separate into correct numbers (the method I use is shaking toilet paper tubes out with crickets hiding in them). It’s time consuming and stressful all around, especially since I do not want to touch them and have had many almost escape!
Well today just topped my annoyance with crickets. I was catching crickets out of their container as usual. I do this in the bathtub so no crickets escape into my house/I have to chase after them. I got as many crickets as I needed and fed my gecko, leaving the cricket container in the bathtub to get when I finished. When I came back, I found 2 crickets outside of their container crawling on the lid. Great! They escaped out of the holes in the lid. Thank god I left that container in the bathtub or else they’d be escaping into my room.
After that incident I spent the next hour moving them into a new smaller container with much smaller holes (I taped up most of the lid because I’m extremely paranoid at this point). That whole experience gave me a giant headache.
Why don’t I switch to dubia roaches? Well, I would be very happy to at this point but they are very costly and hard to get! I am also not very interested in breeding them. If only mealworms could be a staple diet!
If anyone has tips on inescapable but spacious cricket cages please let me know. Also any tips on how to catch them faster without touching them would also be appreciated! I’m sure I’ll get used to them at some point, but for now crickets are the literal worst!

 

[Marillion]

I use the Exo Terra large Cricket keeper. To date, I have not had any escapees. It is actually quite cleverly designed, with Tubes that the Crickets can hide in during the day and you can shake to get them out of when it's feeding time and feeding trays within the box. I use Repashy Bug Burger and Flukers Cricket quencher as well as the Zoomed dry cricket food to feed them. But you can use other items to feed them if you wish.

I shake a tube into a tiny plastic cup (empty very small mealworm cup that held 50 worms) that I hold inside and above a larger sour cream type container that holds whatever powder I am dusting in. The smaller cup prevents the cricket dropping from going into the dusting cup. I then tip or nudge the cricket into the larger dusting cup, put the lid on and swirl around to dust the cricket. I then hold the larger cup inside and above our leo's enclosure and nudge the cricket in. You can use tongs to do the nudging in both cases if you are not wanting to touch the cricket. After a couple of tubes have been shaken into the small container I empty the cricket droppings into our toilet to dispose of them. This method seems to be working well for me and (knock on wood) we have not had any escapees.

Cleaning the box is not too difficult. I take out the tubes and put the open end against a wall so that the crickets cannot climb out. Making sure it isn't in a place where people can knock the tubes over. I make sure all the crickets have climbed up into the tubes before doing this... I then vacuum out the enclosure, give it a quick wipe with a wet paper towel then a dry one and clean out old wet food (dry when occaisonally necessary) and put new food in. Replace the tubes and done. Doesn't take very long at all.

 

[KaylaS]

What i do with crickets is put the container I get them in from the store in the basin (plugged) when I plan to feed them to my gecko. I have tweezers I use to get one out the box. Then close the container and put it away, then go feed the unlucky cricket to my gecko. I usually also wet the cricket and dust it with calcium powder before carrying it over to my geckos tank. Either I hang the cricket in front of my geckos face until he goes for it or sometimes I'll set the cricket free in front of him to simulate a bit of a hunt, just be sure to watch and make sure your gecko actually catches them. Hope this helps?

 

[Marillion]

What i do with crickets is put the container I get them in from the store in the basin (plugged) when I plan to feed them to my gecko. I have tweezers I use to get one out the box. Then close the container and put it away, then go feed the unlucky cricket to my gecko. I usually also wet the cricket and dust it with calcium powder before carrying it over to my geckos tank. Either I hang the cricket in front of my geckos face until he goes for it or sometimes I'll set the cricket free in front of him to simulate a bit of a hunt, just be sure to watch and make sure your gecko actually catches them. Hope this helps?

(If I misunderstood your explanation, then my apologies!) If you are referring to the type of container I am thinking of...the trouble with the original containers you get crickets in from the store is that they tend to be way too small. Not enough room for the crickets to exist in long term and certainly not enough room to have proper food in there to feed them effectively for gutloading purposes. I would suggest you will have waaaaaay more die offs by keeping them in the store bought container for any length of time. Putting them into a situation where they have more space to move around in and hide while having some good food and hydration for them is the best way to keep them healthy and alive for longer making them more effective as nutrition for your pet.

 

[Animallover562]

Thanks for the replies! I’ll definitely try out those methods and see what works best. The large cricket keeper looks a lot easier than what I’m dealing with right now so I’ll probably switch to that. The container they were in originally was used for hermit crabs (don’t worry, they are in a 55 gallon now!) so it wasn’t very fit for bugs. The one I’m using now is some type of small critter keeper I use for my dwarf hamsters when cleaning their tank. They also get the Flukers calcium cricket quencher, dry cricket gutload and a variety of fresh fruits/vegetables at all times.

 

[Marillion]

Nice. Make sure to get the Exo Terra brand Large cricket keeper. The Lee's version is slightly cheaper but not quite as secure.