That Reptile Blog – Reptile, Amphibian and Exotic Pet Care and Information

The Domestic, Brown or House Cricket, Acheta domesticus, is the most widely-used live food for reptiles, amphibians, tarantulas, scorpions and other pets. At once hardy and delicate, it eats just about anything and is easy to breed, yet a colony can be wiped out in hours if conditions are not perfect.  Whether you need only to keep a few alive so that they can feed for several days (thereby increasing their nutritional value) or plan to save money by ordering in bulk or breeding your own crickets, die-offs can be avoided if you follow a few simple rules.

Primary Concerns

Poor ventilation, crowded conditions and high humidity are the most common reasons for cricket colony failures. These three factors are related to one another, and will be discussed below.

Natural History

Domestic Crickets are native to southwestern Asia. Escapees have established populations throughout the world, usually in close association with people. Their taxonomic order, Orthoptera, contains over 20,000 grasshoppers, katydids and related insects.

The USA is home to over 120 cricket species; my favorites, the bizarre Mole Crickets, tunnel below-ground with spade-like front legs (please see photo).  Over 3,000 species have been described worldwide. New Zealand’s “super cricket”, the Giant Weta, is the world’s heaviest insect…at 70 grams, it weighs as much as a House Sparrow!  Read More »

The house cricket is something of an insect oddity…at once both an adaptable, widely introduced species and a somewhat delicate captive.  Native to southwestern Asia, it fares poorly in the damp conditions favored by field crickets and other North American species.

Providing a Water Source: the advantages of gels

House crickets will not survive long in damp conditions, but they do need to drink quite a bit of water, and herein lays the main problem in keeping them.

The crickets drown rapidly in standing water, and cotton or gravel-filled bowls foul quickly.  Stagnant water, and mold on damp sponges or oranges (2 other common methods of providing water) supports bacteria that seems, for reasons not completely understood, to rapidly decimate cricket colonies.  Misting the colony, a useful technique as regard many insects, is worse, and again will result in heavy losses.

The advent of gel-based cricket water substitutes is one of the most important recent innovations in food animal maintenance.  These products save time and money by cutting down on losses.  More importantly, crickets that live longer have improved chances of consuming a nutritious diet, and thus are themselves a more valuable pet food.

I use Cricket Drink and R-Zilla Cricket Calcium Drink Supplement exclusively.  Both are fortified with calcium and other nutrients, and are readily consumed by crickets.  No other water source is necessary.  Millipedes and sow bugs will also feed upon these gel cubes, and they would be well-worth trying on scorpions and tarantulas.

A Warning: Condensation

Even when fruit and standing water is dispensed with, be sure to guard against condensation buildup.  This occurs most frequently in crowded enclosures, and will wipe out your colony in short order.  Adequate ventilation and roomy holding containers are of key importance in avoiding damp conditions.

Next time I’ll review some commercial cricket diets.  Please write in with your own tips for keeping crickets and other food animals.

You can read about the natural history of the house cricket here.