Some of my little crickets end up dying after a day or so (I have them in a plastic cricket holder, ventilated, with little veggies and some vitamin powder). They eat the dead crickets if I feed it to them. Is this OK? I think I put too much powder in with the crickets, cause they end up getting covered in it, but I think this would be good supplementation for the beardies (actually using Dragon Dust by T-Rex that I had left over, cricket powder has the same ingredients mostly)
I've heard some very contraversial things about Dragon Dust so I won't use anything but Rep-cal Calcium and Herpivite with my dragons. As far as crickets, mine didn't eat anything that didn't move as far as prey is concerned. For healthy, well gutloaded crickets, I would only use cricketfood.com's cricket food, I've heard all good about it. Brendan hasn't cared much for crix since I introduced superworms to him last year.
I wouldn't feed them the dead ones personally. I use the gutload cricket food and it seems to work great.
Yeah, dead crickets get dried out and so that makes your dragon just a little less hydrated and it needs all the hydration it can take. Another thing is that the cricket hasn't been eating in a while so it won't have as much nutrients in it's body as a live one. It also makes me nervous to feed dead ones because you don't know how it died. If you accidentally smashed it when tring to get it out, then it should be ok. But the beardie might not go after it if it won't move.
Thanks guys, I've been learning a lot in the last few days, just bought mine last Sat night. The crickets seem to get squashed easily (very young ones), so if thats the case and they are moist, i'll drop it in the cage or hang it by tweezers and they jump right on em. I think i've been to Petco 20 times in the last 3 days (hehe). Bought the Reptison 5.0 by Zoo Med today, gona use that instead of the Super UV coil I got by ESU. The lighting is much more purple. That with a 75w basking light should do the job for my 20g tank i'm hoping. Thermometers at the bottom and top of tank too.
Babies go through crickets so quickly, and petco's aren't cheap, I really advise buying them online in bulk. You can get 500-1000 shipped to you, and that will last you a week or two. It's really the way to go, IMO. I use http://lllreptile.com/ their prices are reasonable and include shipping fees.
I use Rubbermaid tubs. I have found that a 10 gallon can hold 1000 .25s or smaller, and a 32 gallon can hold 2000 .5s, 1000 .75s, or 500 large crickets comfortably. You can probably leave the lid off for good air circulation, but if you have escapes cut a large hole in the lid and glue some screen over it to keep them in.
where can i keep a cricket colony so they arent a nuisance but they dont die (in the winter) garage? outside? attic?
Garage or attic would be fine. Don't put them outside they might freeze. I keep mine in the downstairs closet near the water heater.
