One of the most annoying thing in feeding my inverts crickets is either escape and i have to chase down escapees, or i accidentally give too many in an enclosure.
I tried funnels sometimes works. Some of the crickets i deal with are pinhead, 1/8th and 1/4 inch sizes so they are pretty small. Im also afraid of accidentally smashing the crickets. Some of my invert babies don’t mind fresh kill or dying crickets especially if they are close in size. Some of my inverts ( spiders) need that live insect because the struggle on the web indicates dinner time, they ignore dead insects.
What is an approach that you have used that works without overfeeding or escapes or accidentally crush them?
Yeah, pinheads and small crickets are tough to pick up with tongs, especially without crushing them. With the small ones, I usually grab whatever they’re hiding in (throwing toilet paper rolls in with them works well for this) and gently tap or shake the roll into a small plastic bag, so a few crickets fall into the bag. If I end up with too many, I can dump a few back into the crickets’ enclosure from the bag. Then I just dump them from the bag into the animal’s enclosure. This bag method also makes it easy to dust them with supplement powder if desired. Just sprinkle a bit of powder into the bag, seal the bag with your fingers, and gently shake the bag to coat the crickets.
The bags that pet shops typically put crickets in when you buy them work best in my experience (I always make sure to save a couple), though a small ziplock or sandwich bag would also work in a pinch. Just be careful to make sure the whole mouth of the bag is inside the enclosure before you tip the crickets out, otherwise you’ll end up dumping them on the floor instead of in your animal’s enclosure. This method also makes it hard to aim the insects at a web (or really any specific spot within the enclosure), since they tend to fall and scatter pretty randomly as they fall out of the bag, but so long as it’s a species that actively hunts and/or has set up effective trip wires, it works pretty well.
Hi there! Yes, crickets are not my feeder of choice since they jump, escape, smell and chirp. I have found feeder roaches to be much more user friendly…no noise, no smell, much less likely to transmit parasites or bite the pets, and they live for 1-5 years depending on the species, so they don’t die off before you feed them! Very easy to buy in bulk and keep in a container and feed off gradually. You can actually keep them in a cricket keeper and they go in the tubes and then you just take a tube and shake out the quantity you want.
Roaches can be great for triggering the prey drive of spiders and reluctant eaters. I know a lot of people like Madagascar hissers for their tarantulas, and they come in all sizes and life stages.
Orange heads might be a good choice too since it is also a nice, meaty insect. Message me anytime if you want to give roaches a shot! I know a guy
Thank you for that i honestly am thinking that crickets are a waste of money and the smell especially when they die is horrid and im sure makes my inverts most unhappy.
I currently have Turkish Red Runners and Dubias. When i got them they arrived together and i just put both species in the same bin before i realized i did that. Im not sure if that is an issue or not. I have noticed they breed lile crazy and i have tons of little babies of various sizes because i didnt collect the eggs, i know dubias give live birth so nothing to collect. Im planning on redoing my tubs and getting a small keeper for babies and eggs.
Great idea about the criket keeper with tubes, i will try that.
Roaches are great. They’re generally easier to keep, don’t chirp, smell less, and are safer and more nutritious for the animals eating them. However, one big problem I used to have with them is their tendency to just kind of sit there not moving, or even playing dead. This makes them less appealing to any animal that needs lots of movement to trigger their prey drive. My roommate’s chameleon and crested gecko flat-out refused to eat dubias, hissers, and red runners, no matter how hard we tried. They both loved crickets, but wouldn’t touch roaches. Just something to keep in mind.
I haven’t tried roaches yet with my inverts, though I intend to offer them to my tarantulas at some point. I have heard that the fact they’re a little less lively can deter inverts from going for them, but I’m sure it just depends on the species and individual animal. I hope my tarantulas will go for them, because I prefer them over crickets for all the reasons mentioned.
My roaches are fast when they want, they also seem a lot smarter than my inverts. My scorpions don’t try to chace prey much they will typically wait for the preyvto get close enough to grab it scorpions don’t always sting their prey but if the prey is really fighting they will sting it until it stops moving most times its a 1 hitter quitter on something big like a super worm my Leiurus Quinquestriatus stung the thing like 5 times.
I thought of possibly feeding them in a feed container but they get stressed out at being picked up so they probably wouldn’t eat, im sure they’ll kill it anyways.
The funniest thing ive seen was my Androctonus Amoreuxi running around with a cricket in his pedpalp and hed stop and munch on it walk a bit eat some more. He was eating his cricket like he was a person at an amusement park walking around with a funnel cake
While it can be done, we don’t recommend keeping red runners and dubia together. Red runners are voracious and cannibalistic and will outcompete the dubia and soon you’ll only have red runners!
To sort them, you need two empty bins and a maybe a 2" painbrush. Shake the egg flats into an empty bin. Then tilt the bin so that the roaches try to run out. The red runners are faster (as I’m sure you’ve noticed ) and you can use the paintbrush to push them into another empty bin. Repeat this process as much as needed. Let me know if that makes sense. It’s actually kind of of…like a roach horse race.
Also, the bins look cool!! Are they some sort of mirrored plastic?
the visual on this…now i want to have an arachnid fair and send them all around with snacks to-go
i honestly am thinking that crickets are a waste of money and the smell especially when they die is horrid and im sure makes my inverts most unhappy.
on something big like a super worm my Leiurus Quinquestriatus stung the thing like 5 times.
) and you can use the paintbrush to push them into another empty bin. Repeat this process as much as needed. Let me know if that makes sense. It’s actually kind of of…like a roach horse race. 
