cricket conundrum

[deeleywoman]

i've been keeping a small (i mean small) colony of crickets for scooter for a couple of months now... lately, i've been having trouble keeping them alive! i only keep a dozen small ones at a time, in a "cricket keeper", and they have cardboard to hide under, fluker's cricket water to "drink", and fluker's cricket feed for noms. i just bought a dozen two days ago, and i've got six dead ones on the floor of the cage already!! i'd switched to a different source for my crickets, thinking there was something wrong with the ones at the first store, but apparently it's on my end. what am i doing wrong?

[DarrylR]

Crickets are hard to keep alive, they also will cannibalize and kill each other.. and they stink. Reason why whenever I bought crickets for my turtle it would be enough for one feeding and maybe the next day.

[Vicious_Fish]

I find that I can keep them alive longer when they are kept dry and around 75 degrees. If they are kept too warm or cold they dehydrate and die and if they're kept too moist and humid they die even faster. Just keep them in a warm area and make sure they always have access to food and water.

[deeleywoman]

they're at room temperature, right next to the turtle tank. i've been keeping crickets for about two months now, and it's only n these last few weeks that i've had a problem. =(

[Twistersmom]

Have you done a body count and sure they are all dead?
When they shed their skin, it looks like a complete dead cricket.

[deeleywoman]

.......no, i haven't. i've just been asuming.

*runs upstairs*

edit: ok, i have two definite dead crickets, two definite moults, and two things i can't definitively classify.

[Scrufdog]

the humidity has been hella high on the east coast the past few weeks, maybe VF is on to something when he talked about humidity

[deeleywoman]

sooo i guess i ought to just throw them all in the tank and let him scarf them up before they die off from the humidity, then.... and no more live foods for him till it chills out >_<