How to Care for Live Crickets for Reptiles

When it comes to feeding your pet reptile, one of the best forms of food is the cricket. You can easily find crickets in any pet store. They provide both the nutrition and stimulation needed to keep a reptile healthy. You can store crickets until you need them; however, you must take care of them correctly for them to live.

Things You'll Need

• Crickets
• Under tank heater
• Cricket food
• Sponge
• Small dish
• Thermometer

Instructions

How to Care for Live Crickets for Reptiles

1. Keep the habitat at the correct temperature. Crickets prefer a temperature between 80 and 90 degrees F. You can maintain this temperature by using an under tank heater. Keep a thermometer in the tank to assure that it is not getting too warm.

2. Feed the crickets correctly. Crickets need a diet high in protein to survive. This protein diet also benefits your reptiles, because whatever nutrition the cricket ate gets passed on to the reptile when he eats it. As such, you should feed your crickets with a regular diet of either cricket specific food, or scraps of human or animal food such as vegetable and fruit scraps, powdered dog or cat food, or stale bread. Remove uneaten food at least once a week. This will help keep the smell of the habitat under control, as well as discourage mold growth.

3. Provide water for your crickets. The best way to do this is to take a sponge and dampen it. Place the sponge on a small plate in the habitat. Do not allow any standing water in your habitat because this could drown some of your crickets. Rinse and replace the sponge every three days to keep the tank from smelling.

4. Throw out the substrate. Crickets do not need substrate or bedding in the container. This only makes it harder to catch your crickets when you are ready to feed them to your reptile.

5. Give the crickets space. Overcrowding is one of the easiest ways to kill many of your crickets. Your crickets should not layer on top of each other. Each should have at least a small amount of space to move in to guarantee a better survival rate.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have only a few crickets, a canning jar is more than sufficient to keep them alive. Punch lots of holes in the top of the lid for air and your crickets should be fine.