Live food - Short-winged crickets vers. Sizes

The nocturnal short-winged crickets (Gryllodes sigillatus) are a relatively small cricket species and due to their softer skin and shorter wings they are a good digestible live food.  Short-winged crickets or ribbon crickets are very popular in terraristics - they are a great live food and rearing food for amphibians, lizards, birds, insect-eating snakes and turtles, for approach food-eating fish and also for spiders.

Short-winged crickets stimulate the natural hunting instinct of reptiles, amphibians and spiders. Short-winged crickets are quite easy to propagate in the hobby. The short wings have the pleasant side effect that these crickets chirp less loudly than their kin. Short-winged crickets grow relatively slowly, so the feeders last a long time.

Short-winged crickets arekept at 15 to 20 °C in a large fauna box, which must be at least 30 cm high, so that the jumpy crickets cannot jump out. For the size Micro you have to seal the fauna box additionally with a nylon stocking or fly gauze. Egg cartons or Zewat cloths on the bottom are well accepted.

A well moistened cotton ball is suitable as a watering place. In an open water bowl the short-winged crickets would drown. As food you use best some muesli, oat flakes or dog flakes. Some fruit or vegetables will add vitamins and moisture. Fresh food that is not eaten should be removed quickly so that no mold or rot spreads.

Because crickets move quickly, it is recommended to put the Faunabox in the refrigerator for half an hour before feeding. The cold slows down the cr ickets and makes it easier to remove them. Because short-winged crickets are very fast, they should be fed with tweezers or placed on a water surface. Some reptiles are overwhelmed by their speed.

Feed only selectively - it is quite possible that short-winged crickets will settle in the terrarium. On the one hand, this is quite practical, so as a permanent source of live food and mopping up troop - on the other hand, the chirping can be quite annoying.

For breeding the short-winged cricket you need a temperature of 25 to 30 degrees and a humidity of 65 to 70 %. For breeding the crickets you use a well ventilated but still dense terrarium, so that the little jumping artists do not escape. The bottom substrate should consist of terrarium humus. Hiding places made of cork bark or half coconuts are well accepted. Egg cartons also provide good structure.

Also in the breeding tank offer a damp cotton ball as a watering place and give the food in a bowl. Because crickets are quite cannibalistic, you must feed the adult short-winged crickets well to prevent them from helping themselves to the young. In addition to flakes and fruits and vegetables, some dry dog food can help prevent cannibalism.

If a short-winged cricket ever escapes you - don't worry. The apartment is too dry and too cold, besides, the crickets will starve sooner or later. It is very unlikely that short-winged crickets will take up permanent residence in your home. You can easily catch them with sticky traps.

In our shop you can buy short-winged crickets of the size "Micro" . This size is relatively resistant to heat, cold and drought and usually survives shipping without any problems.

Short wing crickets have a good nutritional composition. Their nutritional values on average are:

• Crude protein: approx. 17%
• Crude fat: approx. 6%
• Crude 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 - 150 pieces