What Size Of Crickets To Order

[juliect]

I have been treating my girls to mealworms from www.reptilefood.com for quite a while. I figured I would add some crickets onto my next order, just to see what they think...but they have all sizes. 1/16", 1/8", 1/4", 3/8", 1/2", 2/3", 3/4", 7/8", and 1". Wow, who knew ordering crickets could be so complicated? My oldest girls are 17 weeks and my youngest are 5 weeks. What would be a good size to order?

 

[Camelot Farms]

I would go with the 1/2 inch. Thats what we feed our frogs and occasionally I sneak a few to the girls

 

[RobbysRoost]

mealworms work better

 

[darkmatter]

Quote:
You only need to buy the crickets once if you breed them in a Terrarium. Put a couple inches of creek sand in the bottom mixed with bark or wood chips. Have a small saucer to pour water in, overflow it a little to keep the sand just slightly damp. Put a few cardboard cells from a egg carton in (like little igloos). Feed them dry catfood, in a few weeks you will have more crickets then you know what to do with.
To catch them for feeding to the chicks, hold a ziplock bag down in the Terrarium and lift and place in the bag one of the cardboard cricket igloos, then dump the bag to the chicks, igloo and all. You should have a screen cover with a reflector lamp shining down in one corner to give a heat gradiant. Use the store bought gray crickets---the black ones you can catch outside (or in your basement) won't breed in the Terrarium like the gray ones will. Yes, I have been breeding crickets for my kids reptiles--been feeding the extras to baby chicks.

 

[juliect]

Quote:
You only need to buy the crickets once if you breed them in a Terrarium. Put a couple inches of creek sand in the bottom mixed with bark or wood chips. Have a small saucer to pour water in, overflow it a little to keep the sand just slightly damp. Put a few cardboard cells from a egg carton in (like little igloos). Feed them dry catfood, in a few weeks you will have more crickets then you know what to do with.
To catch them for feeding to the chicks, hold a ziplock bag down in the Terrarium and lift and place in the bag one of the cardboard cricket igloos, then dump the bag to the chicks, igloo and all. You should have a screen cover with a reflector lamp shining down in one corner to give a heat gradiant. Use the store bought gray crickets---the black ones you can catch outside (or in your basement) won't breed in the Terrarium like the gray ones will. Yes, I have been breeding crickets for my kids reptiles--been feeding the extras to baby chicks.

Sounds fun...and easy!
I ordered the 1/2" crickets (thanks yet again Camelot

) Can they breed at that size or do they have some growing to do?
Thanks!

 

[sillybirds]

I guess I'm too late, but I would have said get the large size. After all, we're talking about chickens, who have been known to eat lizards, mice, each other... Even a big cricket is like an appetizer!

If you're into raising bugs, you may consider cockroaches too. Call me crazy, but since I'm setup to raise mealworms, I figured why not try roaches. I got a few blaptica dubia, which are supposedly not as smelly as crickets. Ask me in a couple months.

 

[juliect]

Quote:
I will let you be the one to experiment with raising roaches

Knowing me I would mess up and accidently release them, thus causing an invasion of my neighborhood, with possible intervention by the CDC and the National Guard

 

[mema2003]

Crickets I can deal with but no cockroaches for me. I was complaining just the other day about seeing some roaches in my house which I haven't seen in years and the lady that rents the house across the street out says it is loaded with roaches and she doesn't see how they sleep at night. Black crickets are plentiful in our part of the country this year. I also have seen grasshoppers which I haven't seen in a few years too. Last year seemed to be the year for more vegetables and fruit than you could possibly put up and this year it is bugs hopping and running

 

[wildorchid053]

we have so many grasshoppers and crickets here the wild turkey and their babies munch all day long.. my chicks free range and i have seen them eat 1" crickets and 2" grasshopper with no problem.. so i would think any size would do

 

[gritsar]

We have tons of crickets in our yard all year except wintertime. My chickens (and now the puppy

) have been gobbling them up since they were babies. I don't worry about the size because rarely does one chicken get to eat the whole thing by themselves - one hen grabs a leg here, another there and so on and so forth.
I've seen my chickens eat an entire fig whole. Smaller than a fig and I don't worry.