Live Crickets Care Sheet
Crickets Care Sheet:
PetWave Premium Quality Crickets can be added to the diet of many animals to help provide a balanced and natural nutritious diet. As active movers, crickets are also perfect for animals who are stimulated by the movement of live food in order to eat.
Crickets are suitable for feeding to the following pets:
- Lizards, including Bearded Dragons
- Frogs & Turtles
- Predatory Fish such as Large Cichlid, Barramundi and Oscars
- Insect eating birds
- Chickens
- Rats & Mice
- Spiders
- Wildlife
Crickets contain: 74% Moisture, 18% Protein, 6% Fat and 140mg/kg Calcium and 2520mg/kg of Phosphorus.
Feeding Crickets to Your Pet: Place enough crickets to feed your pet in a small transfer container. Putting the crickets in the refrigerator for a few minutes can slow the crickets down, making them easier to catch for your pet.
Carefully take the crickets to your pet’s enclosure.
- If crickets escape in your house or garage, they can be disturbingly noisy and hard to find.
- If you feed too many to your pet, the crickets can establish in your pet’s home which can be a small risk to your pet or their young.
Feed the crickets at a rate that allows your pet to eat them immediately.
Gutloading is the simple process of feeding your crickets high quality nutritious foods containing healthy minerals and vitamins supplements, so that the nutrition is passed to your pet. Feed the Gutload to the crickets up to 2 hours before being fed to your pet and dust calcium powder on your crickets immediately before you feed them to your pet. Organic Gutload and Calcium Powder can be purchased online from PetWave.
Housing Your Crickets: There are many options for storage of your crickets. Ideally, if you plan on keeping for more than a week they should be unpacked as soon as possible after arriving. The most economical storage containers tend to be plastic sided tubs (say 60+ litre), commonly available from most discount and hardware stores. The tub needs to be extremely well ventilated, as crickets don’t survive long in high humidity environments (due to bacterial and fungal exposure). A lid is not required.
As crickets can cannibalise, they need places to hide. The most economical options are piles of egg cartons, paper towel and toilet rolls and/or corrugated cardboard. Paper towel and toilet rolls are also handy devices for easily capturing your crickets.
Most crickets are produced at temperatures between 25 to 28 Degrees C. Crickets stored at temperatures outside of this may have reduced life.
Toxic fumes can be very dangerous to your crickets including insecticides, cleaning products, dog shampoos, flea products, car fumes, smoke, etc.
Feeding Your Crickets: Crickets are veracious omnivores and will eat almost anything. Choose foods that you would be happy for your pets to eat. Thoroughly washed fresh fruit and vegetables such as carrot, pumpkin, cabbage, lettuce, apple, etc are ideal to meet both their food and water requirements. Dry dog food or rodent pellets are also a handy staple. No other water is required but some people also add a saturated sponge to be sure. Replace the food and clean up any waste every day or two to keep hygienic. Always ensure that there is sufficient food for the crickets, otherwise they might resort to cannibalism.
Cricket Sizes:
- Baby Crickets
- Extra Small Crickets
- Small Crickets
- Medium Crickets
- Large Crickets
Packaging:
Handy tubs & bulk supplies available in most sizes.