Live food - Crickets vers. Sizes

As food animals the nocturnal crickets (Acheta domesticus) are a real classic and the standard in terraristics. Also native to Central Europe, crickets or house crickets are robust and do not require much heat. Crickets grow up to 3.5 cm in size. Crickets do not chirp as loudly as other cricket species. They are very suitable in various size stages as live food and rearing food for amphibians, lizards, birds, insect-eating snakes and turtles, for approach food-eating fish and also for spiders.

The mobile cricket stimulates the hunting instinct of terrarium animals and helps against boredom. Crickets are good and easy to propagate. Crickets are kept at room temperature in a large Faunabox lined with egg cartons or Zewa cloths or sprinkled with sand until they are ready to be fed.

To prevent the crickets from accidentally drowning in an open water dish, you can offer them a well-moistened cotton ball as a watering place. Suitable food for crickets are oat flakes, wheat germ, grass or dog flakes. Fruits and vegetables add moisture, minerals and vitamins. You can also find ready-mixed cricket food in pet stores. Be sure to remove uneaten fresh food from the terrarium before it molds.

For the cricket breeding you can offer the house cricket a small open box as an egg laying tray with moist sawdust or growing soil. After about a week, place this egg-laying container in a rearing container - another faunarium with a bottom substrate of sand. At 35 °C the cricket larvae hatch after only 10 days, if it is cooler they need longer.

Take good care that no crickets escape when you remove the food. They can survive well in housing conditions and chirp loudly. If a cricket does escape, you can catch the insects again with adhesive traps from the pet store.

You can buy crickets in different sizes.
Micro: up to 2 mm
Small: up to 5 mm
Medium: up to 10 mm
Subadult: up to 2,5 cm
Large: 3-3,5 cm

Crickets have a good nutritional composition. Their nutritional values on average are:

• Crude protein: approx. 19%
• Crude fat: ca. 4%
• Raw ash: approx. 1%

Suitable for: Reptiles such as bearded dragons, water dragons, chameleons, leopard geckos and other terrarium animals, for amphibians, for insect-eating snakes and turtles, for birds and for fish that eat approach foods.

Size / Content
Micro - 120 pieces
Small - 80 pieces
Medium - 60 pieces
Subadult -  50 pieces
Large - 40 pieces