# Why are crickets bad for Orchids?



## patdbunny

Self explanatory question.

I raised mine completely on crickets. I didn't know any better.

Roz.


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## Rick

Mine eat crickets. No problems here. They are not "bad' for them. It may be best to feed them flying insects but I have had no issues using crickets as a PART of their diet.


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## patdbunny

I always "gut load" crickets, as I have reptiles too. Maybe that's why my mantid did ok on the crickets.


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## Rick

> I always "gut load" crickets, as I have reptiles too. Maybe that's why my mantid did ok on the crickets.


I also have reptiles that eat crickets as part of thier diet. I feed the crickets a good diet because of it.


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## yen_saw

I just lost one adult female orchid mantis today. I fed her a cricket 2 days ago, she didn't look so good yesterday and completely turn black and die today. It looks like she had been poison!! I am pretty sure it is because of cricket. It is just luck that she had a "bad" cricket. But there is always higher chance of mantis being infected by diseases from feeding crickets compared to feeding flies. At least she laid 5 oothecae before her death.


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## OGIGA

Oh man, that's sad!  I'm never going to feed my mantises crickets now... unless they're going to starve to death.


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## Rick

> Oh man, that's sad!  I'm never going to feed my mantises crickets now... unless they're going to starve to death.


:roll: Chances of that are low. My mantids eat almost nothing but crickets and always have. I have had very very few issues like that.


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## patdbunny

I've had problems with crickets in the past getting them from a questionable source (PetCo). A large portion of the crickets died in the bag before I got them home. I fed them to my baby bearded dragon anyway (like a fool). My poor lizard started twitching within a few hours and died. I talked it over with a friend of mine (lizard breeder) and he said it was bad crickets. He's had that happen to him.

So, I'm thinking the problem is that crickets are so readily available and it's unknown how the pet store keeps them prior to the consumer purchasing them. I have a friend who owns a pet store and he doesn't feed anything to his crickets - it's not cost effective.

Now when I get crickets I feed and water them for several days before feeding them out. If there's a high death rate or anything odd, I don't feed them to any of my animals. What a pain in the neck. But worth it if it prevents illness in any of my critters.

Invertebrates, I'm assuming, are more sensitive to being food poisoned by their food.

Roz.


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## Rick

> I've had problems with crickets in the past getting them from a questionable source (PetCo). A large portion of the crickets died in the bag before I got them home. I fed them to my baby bearded dragon anyway (like a fool). My poor lizard started twitching within a few hours and died. I talked it over with a friend of mine (lizard breeder) and he said it was bad crickets. He's had that happen to him. So, I'm thinking the problem is that crickets are so readily available and it's unknown how the pet store keeps them prior to the consumer purchasing them. I have a friend who owns a pet store and he doesn't feed anything to his crickets - it's not cost effective.
> 
> Now when I get crickets I feed and water them for several days before feeding them out. If there's a high death rate or anything odd, I don't feed them to any of my animals. What a pain in the neck. But worth it if it prevents illness in any of my critters.
> 
> Invertebrates, I'm assuming, are more sensitive to being food poisoned by their food.
> 
> Roz.


Well I think your first mistake is buying them from a chain pet store. Get them from a reputable breeder online and you wil have few problems. My mantids, turtle, and lizard all eat my crickets with no issues.


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## patdbunny

I know. PetCo. Kick me in the head.  I usually don't buy anything from the chain stores other than dog food. That ONE time I was running around and decided that ONE time wouldn't hurt. ERRRR. Wrong!

I usually buy crickets by the box.


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## OGIGA

I got my crickets from PetCo. My mantises who ate the crickets are fine. The only funny thing that I discovered is that crickets eat each other, as also discussed in this forum. Maybe I won't get crickets from PetCo then. My bluebottle fruit flies came from there as well.


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## wuwu

bluebottle fruit flies? what's that?


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## OGIGA

Wait, does bluebottle mean that you buy them in a bottle that has blue stuff as substrate or something else?


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## yen_saw

John, i think Ogiga meant fruit flies (D. Hydei) comes in blue medium.

Well i usually buy crickets from Pet'smart when i need a small quantity as i know they gut-load thier crix. I have the same mistake as you patdbunny thinking that one time at Petco shouldn't harm. So i bought a dozen and gut-load them immediately. Guess there was a "bad apple" among them and i fed it to this orchid female, what a bummer! I hate Petco crix :evil: Cases like this seldom happen to me but i just hate it when it does happen, especially to an adult mantis.


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## Rory

that pic you posted was of an uncurable bactrial infection. My giant african had it. RIP Kurt.


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## patdbunny

Kurt -

What kind of bacterial infection? Was it caused by the cricket? Any signs prior to death? Or does it cause sudden death?

Any thoughts on feeding the feeder insect antibiotics before feeding it out to the mantis?

Roz


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## OGIGA

The weather just turned really bad here so there aren't any flies out. I ordered some fly pupae but it probably won't be here until a few more days. I think my only option for now is crickets from PetCo :? . How can I tell if the crickets are good or bad? (is it possible to tell?)


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## patdbunny

Hold on to the crickets for 24 hours. During that time feed them really well and water them. If there's a high death rate during that 24 hours (more than 1 or 2), be safe and don't feed them to your critters.

Roz.


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## OGIGA

More than 1 or 2 out of how many?


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## Jodokohajjio

I'm a college student, but on breaks I work part-time at a pet store (Complete Petmart) that supplies crickets. The crickets my store carries are supplied by a company called "Top Hat" and I believe they sell some other feeder insects as well.

The crickets we carried were pretty hearty I'd say, but I think when they are shipped in mass to petstores like that, there's a good chance of high mortality rates. We probably lost at least 10% of whatever we ordered during the time that they were kept in the store. When it was cold outside, it often occured that entire shipments of crickets were dead upon arrival. The mortality rates of surviving crickets were also naturally much higher in the winter because of this.

I'd take this stuff into account, and if you are concerned about getting store-bought crickets, keeping them for a day wouldn't be a bad idea. Make sure that aside from food and water, however, you also have somewhere for them to hide (we typically used egg carton, but just about anything will do). If they do not have somewhere to hide, they seem to get stressed out, and I've even seen cases of cannibalism when this happens.

Also be sure that they cannot drown in their water source! An easy feeding/watering method is to buy the gelatin food that they have at most retail petstores. I forget the name of the particular food we carried, but it had the consistency of jello and would provide both food and water for the crickets without risk of drowning. Alternatively, you could slice a fresh potato in half and that would do the same thing (provide food and water), but would probably not provide much nutritional value for the mantids.

At my store, we had a waterbottle/trough with a sponge in the trough, and we would feed the crickets dog/cat food as a staple. To gutload them, we would add in a bunch of tropical fish flaked food (which they readily ate) and then feed them to the store reptiles/amphibians. This would be an ideal setup, but if this is going to be a one-time only thing, I would stick with the minimum stuff unless you have the fish food and watterbottle handy.


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## OGIGA

I tried adding a slice of potato to crickets several weeks ago and the potato got really moldy. What else seems to work? Any suggestions about what to feed the crickets that'll benefit the mantises?


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## xenuwantsyou

I use lettuce and have had no problems at all.


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## Jodokohajjio

Well, I'm not exactly sure what the daily nutrient intake for any particular species of praying mantis ought to be, but I think that using flaked tropical fish food with the crickets would be pretty good because it'll be higher in protein than potatoes and whatnot. As mantids are predators, I imagine that this would be better.

There is also cricket dust available as a calcium supplement for reptiles, but I don't think that the dust will have any benefit for the mantis (though I haven't seen anything conclusive about this either way).


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## OGIGA

I got some crickets earlier and settled for giving them cucumber. The crickets who found the cucumber seem to really like it.


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## OGIGA

I bought like 25-30 of them yesterday. Today, 4 are dead and they look kinda gross. Maybe that means I should keep them away from my mantises...


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## Jodokohajjio

Also make sure you are looking at actual dead crickets too. Crickets go through incomplete metamorphasis like mantids do (I don't remember how many larval stages there are though). The husks will look kinda like dead crickets, but they will be extremly light and papery. Dead crickets dry up after a little while too, but its easy to mistake the discarded exoskeleton for a dead bug.


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## OGIGA

They're definately dead crickets. Some of them look gooey and gross. I did find one shell yesterday though.


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## OGIGA

Most of the crickets have already died now.


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## Jodokohajjio

Hah, then its probably safe to say that they should not be fed to your mantids! Make sure you clean out the container you kept them in when they're gone.


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## OGIGA

I kept them in a water bottle. That's going to go away!


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## patdbunny

The 1-2 dead cricket (my conservative rule of thumb) is for about a dozen crickets.

Nice healthy crickets are tannish. When they're not doing too well, if they're not dead or sluggish, their bodies look dark.

As for the PetCo crickets - I'm sure when they're shipped from the bug supplier, they're probably pretty healthy. I spoke to some PetCo employees who said sometimes they feed their crickets antibiotics and then feed them to their herps (??? I have herpy friends who have no idea why PetCo would do that). That practice apparently adversely affects the crickets.

I use a damp sponge (cheap 99cent store sponge. Some of the premium sponges are treated with chemicals), or damp paper towel (convenient as it's disposable) to administer water. I feed my crickets fish flakes (very cheap for a huge quantity if you find a pet store/feed store that sells it in bulk and supposedly very nutritious for gut loading).

Roz.


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## OGIGA

Hmm, that's interesting. I didn't know that they feed their crickets antibiotics that'll kill the crickets. I guess that's not really a bad thing then.


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