Got crickets?

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El Chivo
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Got crickets?

Post by El Chivo »

crickets.jpg
these guys started hatching about 3 weeks ago. The store-bought crickets from Petco finally paid dividends - far more so than my 401k. They grow up so fast, especially on a diet of apple cores and oatmeal (and each other). Kind of makes you misty.

The insides of the boxes and under the egg crate are covered with them also - do I have 2,000 you think? I have more in another bucket.

These guys don't yet know about the impending bounty - they're just trying to stay cool on a hot and humid night.
bathers.jpg
Same with this guy, in his nice and cool natural stone jacuzzi. Lots of tiny white bugs like the water, too. I don't know what they are, but they seem innocuous.

cool.jpg
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Rusty
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Rusty »

Is that a Petco retail store as in a National Chain?

What do you do, buy a cricket kit?

My chickens love crickets!!!! :D :D :D
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Blaine
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Blaine »

Super Great fish bait....
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El Chivo
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by El Chivo »

Rusty wrote:Is that a Petco retail store as in a National Chain?

What do you do, buy a cricket kit?

My chickens love crickets!!!! :D :D :D
I just kept buying the crickets. I got small crickets when the frogs were small but by 6 months they wanted large crickets only. They ignore small ones.

Once I started keeping large crickets, which are the only ones that make noise, I got nothing for months. But once we hit summer I noticed a few tiny ones in the frog tank. Some crickets survived long enough to place eggs. A few weeks later I started seeing tons of tiny ones in the cricket keeper (a tall white bucket with potting soil in the bottom).

So it took a while, but it finally happened. I assume the crickets, once grown, will die out before the frogs can eat them all, but while I have them, well, no need to run to Petco.

I have been putting a variety of cereal in their feeder, but I noticed them carrying away pieces of oatmeal to consume later in private. So I think that's their favorite. I also put in "Fluker's" which is a mixture of cereal and vitamins and they like that too.

The vitamins are not cricket vitamins, they are frog vitamins, as we consider the concept of "gut loading". The crickets are fed nutrients intended for the frogs, so when the frogs eat them they get both the cricket and the cricket's stomach contents. Works with flies, too. I prefer to catch picnic area flies over dog run flies.

One thing that happens to the little cannibals, is that they get fewer and fewer in the Petco containers. You buy a container of 36, it might contain 50 if you get it fresh, but if you are a few days late, there might be only 12 or so left.

Harvesting is no problem due to the small ammo boxes. There are always crickets hiding in there, hanging on to all 5 sides. I take the box and dump them into a tall drinking glass, which I cover and dump in a funnel which feeds into the terrarium.

I tell you I have had a ton of fun with this. One by product is I don't go out to the lake as much, since I have my own little microcosm right here.
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Rusty »

There used to be a bait shop near me where I'd go but some crickets about once a month to feed to my chickens. I called it cricket rugby.

The bait shop used to keep theirs in a large enclosure with quartered potatoes in in it for the crickets to eat and they did quite well.
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by JerryB »

A bunch of those crickets and a light flyrod would be alot of fun on a pond full of bream.
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Mike D. »

Fat tree frogs, El Chivo. We have them here, too. Noisy little devils in the winter and spring. :)
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Mike D.
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Mike D. »

That's just "frog talk". They are much louder when mating season rolls around. :)
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Blaine »

JerryB wrote:A bunch of those crickets and a light flyrod would be alot of fun on a pond full of bream.
:D
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El Chivo
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by El Chivo »

Mike D. wrote:That's just "frog talk". They are much louder when mating season rolls around. :)
That's true. I was out in the wild and there were just two calling to each other and one was this little guy really ripping into it. They stop when you approach but I did find him - skinny and young, but boy, could he wail.

I was expecting my boys to start that this spring, but nothing. Either they were too young or they are bored with each other. They may need the whole community around to be interested. I'll find out this winter.
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by 3leggedturtle »

I used to catch grasshoppers al summer long and freeze them. In the winter when i pulled them out to feed my turtles, about 1/3 of them would come back to life. Your way would of been alot easier BUTmy mother would never let that happen
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Rusty
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by Rusty »

You can also catch frogs with a flyrod...

A small piece of red felt tied to the tippet and flipped in front of a sitting frog and they'll nail it. When they do you just reel 'em in.
If you're gonna be stupid ya gotta be tough-
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El Chivo
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Re: Got crickets?

Post by El Chivo »

Rusty wrote:You can also catch frogs with a flyrod...

A small piece of red felt tied to the tippet and flipped in front of a sitting frog and they'll nail it. When they do you just reel 'em in.
I have had to pull sticks out of their mouths before, when they go for a cricket and get more than they bargained for. They keep swallowing.
"I'll tell you what living is. You get up when you feel like it. You fry yourself some eggs. You see what kind of a day it is."
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