# What do Pinhead crickets eat?



## lectricblueyes (Mar 31, 2009)

I've read that adult crickets eat dog food/oat meal and leafy greens (not iceburg!). But, do the pinheads eat the same?


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## robelgado (Mar 31, 2009)

yea definately not iceburg. I had a bad experience feeding my crickets that lettuce.

and yea feeding them the regular stuff should be fine.


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## lectricblueyes (Mar 31, 2009)

Water. I saw a post that said you should take toilet paper, wrap it around your finger nice and tight, soak it in water and put that in there. Replace it everyday or when it looks dry. Will that work?


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## Katnapper (Mar 31, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> Water. I saw a post that said you should take toilet paper, wrap it around your finger nice and tight, soak it in water and put that in there. Replace it everyday or when it looks dry. Will that work?


I'd hate standing there that long! :lol: 

No, seriously... I don't think the toilet paper is a good idea. If you want to do something like that use paper towel. You can get a hamster waterer and put the end down into a shallow cup lid with folded paper towel in the bottom to avoid it drying out every day. Hey, I've got 2 you can have, lol! I purchased some of the water gel crystals, and I love them... not going back to the stinky paper towel mess.


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## hibiscusmile (Mar 31, 2009)

wont it hurt to leave your finger in there? and arent u gonna use it anymore? and 1 more question.... what are u gonna use when all your fingers are gone :lol: .

On another note, I use the humidity foam and never fool with anything else, it stays wet for days and they cant drown on it.I soak it till it cant hold any more water and put in the lid I keep it in and thats it.


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## PhilinYuma (Mar 31, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> Water. I saw a post that said you should take toilet paper, wrap it around your finger nice and tight, soak it in water and put that in there. Replace it everyday or when it looks dry. Will that work?


They don't care, David! They get plenty of fluid in the veggies and citrus fruits and potatoes that you slice up and toss in, according to what you have lying around. Like Katt says, tiolet paper or paper towels get nasty quickly. I have a lot of untreated wood chips and I toss them in a tupperware bowl and keep it topped up with water. Rick's oatmeal substrate is a great idea, too.

In one of these threads, I mentioned that someone in the Prete book advocates giving animal protein in the form of dry cat or dog food, so that they are less likely to attack each other or your mantids. Both Mija and I use it regularly, but a crick that was hiding when one of her mantids molted yesterday, still gave it a nasty bite, so there are no hard and fast rules. Just don't forget about them for a few days!


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## PhilinYuma (Mar 31, 2009)

Now it's come up with a new trick! Merde! Sorry, again.


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## Emile.Wilson (Apr 1, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Now it's come up with a new trick! Merde! Sorry, again.


No swearing!!!!! lol


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## Rick (Apr 1, 2009)

They should get enough water from their food assuming you're are offering greens, apples, etc.


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## lectricblueyes (Apr 1, 2009)

Thank you all very much for the information. I feel bad asking so many questions! Hope it's not too painful/annoying.  

One last question. I bought 100 pinheads and put them in a small enclosure. I put shipping tape along the top edges and made sure no sticky side was up. This is doing a great job at keeping them down though they rarely get up the plastic.

Anyway... I want to breed these myself so I don't have to buy them or make the trips back and forth. The question is, are these pinhead crickets just baby versions of the big ones? I'd like them to get bigger so that they are big enough to feed my L5 Gambian Spotted Eye. As they get bigger, they could feed larger adult mantids. Thanks!


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## lectricblueyes (Apr 1, 2009)

hibiscusmile said:


> wont it hurt to leave your finger in there? and arent u gonna use it anymore? and 1 more question.... what are u gonna use when all your fingers are gone :lol: .On another note, I use the humidity foam and never fool with anything else, it stays wet for days and they cant drown on it.I soak it till it cant hold any more water and put in the lid I keep it in and thats it.


Well, it does hurt a little bit but the nutritional value of my finger is well worth the minor loss. After the 10 fingers are gone I'll probably go with my toes and of course we can't forget about the 11'th finger. When that's all eaten up I'll probably order some Chinese babies. The females go real cheap and come with their own feeder insects! I've already got some rice-based medium all ready to go! Any ideas on substrate?


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## Katnapper (Apr 1, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> Thank you all very much for the information. I feel bad asking so many questions! Hope it's not too painful/annoying.  One last question. I bought 100 pinheads and put them in a small enclosure. I put shipping tape along the top edges and made sure no sticky side was up. This is doing a great job at keeping them down though they rarely get up the plastic.
> 
> Anyway... I want to breed these myself so I don't have to buy them or make the trips back and forth. The question is, are these pinhead crickets just baby versions of the big ones? I'd like them to get bigger so that they are big enough to feed my L5 Gambian Spotted Eye. As they get bigger, they could feed larger adult mantids. Thanks!


OUCH!!! It hurts... the pain!!!  Just kidding... better to ask than not to know.  

Yes, the pinheads are just babies and will grow into regular sized crickets as adults (about 1" in size). You can use them at nearly any stage of their growth to feed mantids. You'll figure out appropriate size for what size mantis. If the cricket is too big, the mantis won't eat it and will run away from it.

Edit: Adding reply to additional post...



LectricBlueyes said:


> Well, it does hurt a little bit but the nutritional value of my finger is well worth the minor loss. After the 10 fingers are gone I'll probably go with my toes and of course we can't forget about the 11'th finger. When that's all eaten up I'll probably order some Chinese babies. The females go real cheap and come with their own feeder insects! I've already got some rice-based medium all ready to go! Any ideas on substrate?


You're not planning on having kids anytime soon, are you. :huh: Hmmm... maybe that's a good thing!


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## lectricblueyes (Apr 1, 2009)

Katnapper said:


> OUCH!!! It hurts... the pain!!!  Just kidding... better to ask than not to know.  Yes, the pinheads are just babies and will grow into regular sized crickets as adults (about 1" in size). You can use them at nearly any stage of their growth to feed mantids. You'll figure out appropriate size for what size mantis. If the cricket is too big, the mantis won't eat it and will run away from it.
> 
> Edit: Adding reply to additional post...
> 
> You're not planning on having kids anytime soon, are you. :huh: Hmmm... maybe that's a good thing!


Sweet! Glad to hear that I didn't buy midget crickets that'll never grow.

Yes, so far my rule of thumb seems to be that thte feeder insect should not be bigger than the mantis and I aim for 1/2 the size or smaller than the mantis.

Thanks Kat! That was such a fast response!


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## kamakiri (Apr 1, 2009)

You can grow them, but 100 pinheads won't get you far...unless you only have a few nymphs.

Raising/breeding them myself has not proven fruitful just yet!


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## PhilinYuma (Apr 1, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> Well, it does hurt a little bit but the nutritional value of my finger is well worth the minor loss. After the 10 fingers are gone I'll probably go with my toes and of course we can't forget about the 11'th finger. When that's all eaten up I'll probably order some Chinese babies. The females go real cheap and come with their own feeder insects! I've already got some rice-based medium all ready to go! Any ideas on substrate?


Yeah, rice paper. You wrap it around your finger real tight.. oops! Sorry! I forgot! :lol:


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## lectricblueyes (Apr 2, 2009)

PhilinYuma said:


> Yeah, rice paper. You wrap it around your finger real tight.. oops! Sorry! I forgot! :lol:


lol


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## lectricblueyes (Apr 2, 2009)

kamakiri said:


> You can grow them, but 100 pinheads won't get you far...unless you only have a few nymphs.Raising/breeding them myself has not proven fruitful just yet!


Nah, I have FF cultures for the nyphs. Really got the pinheads to mix up the diet and to turn those pinheads into adults. Various sized crickets are great for my various sized mantids.


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## PhilinYuma (Apr 2, 2009)

I just went through this entire thread (Very Instructive  ) but no one has mentioned what pinhead cickets' Very Favoritist Food is, so I'll tell you.

Other pinhead crickets.


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## nasty bugger (Apr 2, 2009)

I bought a bunch of 5 and 6 week crickets and let them lay eggs in some peatmoss, and the pinheads were numerous. I made a mistake of 'watering' the pinheads by putting paper towel in the bottom of the shoe box I had them in, and keeping it moist by putting water on it with a baster. I apparently got too much water in there cause they either drowned or dried up and turned to dust. Maybe the dust was them eating each other, though I had carrots, dog food and other fruits and vegs in there with them. fruitflies took over and I had maggots all over in that box. Oh well.

I figure when I get full grown crickets that I'll just put a small tub of moist peat moss in with them and let them lay eggs and I'll have some pinheads in a couple weeks. Free food from adult mantis food


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## kamakiri (Apr 3, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> Nah, I have FF cultures for the nyphs. Really got the pinheads to mix up the diet and to turn those pinheads into adults. Various sized crickets are great for my various sized mantids.


I try do the same thing, but buy pinheads by the 1,000 lot. But of course, you may not be a Mantis SlumLord yet!  At least that's what my wife calls me!

I only mean that raising 100 pinheads thru adulthood won't last that long unless you only have two or three mantises. Like Phil says above, you are also trying to prevent them from eating each other too.


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## tonyi (Apr 6, 2009)

I used to breed crickets when I had Fire-bellied Toads. But that was 14 years ago, a bit hard to remember exactly how I did it. I do recall, however, that the enclosure I used was a 10 gal plexiglass tank with a mesh lid. I had sand as substrate (easy to scoop out when dirty, little risk of those buggers hiding in it) and sheets of cardboard to provide them with something to hide behind. I fed them chicken food and used a wet sponge to supply them with water. I never sprayed their enclosure, it was completely dry. That worked for me. The older ones get pretty nasty when they grow into full size though.


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## lectricblueyes (Apr 6, 2009)

My 100 pinheads is looking more like 75 pinheads. In the past week they have grown very slightly.

I'm using a bed of dry oatmeal as my substrate and I have mixed feelings about this. I don't know if they eat the oatmeal or not. I have no idea and it's not going to be pretty when I clean it up because the color of the oatmeal closely matches the color of the pinheads. If they have food/water and they are just pinheads, why use a substrate at all? heck, I'd rater just put a black piece of paper on the bottom and glue that down so I can very clearly see them against the black surface. Now, when I get adults I'll move them into another tank I have setup with black soil so they can lay eggs.

Tomatoes = not a good idea. I dices up some tomatoes and have found that it kills them. It's too watery and they get stuck in the goo of the tomatoes.

Ground up Dog Food = Eh, they don't SEEM to eat it much. It just sits in a tiny pile in the corner.

Carrots = The best so far. They all crowd the carrot pieces. The cool thing is I can take out the carrot sticks, shake the pinheads off of it and soak it in water to re-expand the carrot sticks and use them over again. They also last a long time both in cricket tank and in the fridge. I bought those carrots about 3 weeks ago and they look the same. All I do is skin them, cut them into long, thin sticks and poof, done! I pull the sticks out every other day and soak them in water for 30 minutes until they look bloated again. (warm water works better). After doing this 2 times, they do appear to discolor and at that point, I just throw them out and put in new ones. This is cheap, easy, and so far I find it to be the best way to feed the pinheads.


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## Rick (Apr 6, 2009)

LectricBlueyes said:


> My 100 pinheads is looking more like 75 pinheads. In the past week they have grown very slightly. I'm using a bed of dry oatmeal as my substrate and I have mixed feelings about this. I don't know if they eat the oatmeal or not. I have no idea and it's not going to be pretty when I clean it up because the color of the oatmeal closely matches the color of the pinheads. If they have food/water and they are just pinheads, why use a substrate at all? heck, I'd rater just put a black piece of paper on the bottom and glue that down so I can very clearly see them against the black surface. Now, when I get adults I'll move them into another tank I have setup with black soil so they can lay eggs.
> 
> Tomatoes = not a good idea. I dices up some tomatoes and have found that it kills them. It's too watery and they get stuck in the goo of the tomatoes.
> 
> ...


Yes they do eat the oatmeal. I don't see why you think you will need to clean the container until they are much bigger. They grow fast. I normally get crickets that are half grown and I usually have several that make it to old age if I don't use them up. I have never had to really clean the enclosure anymore than once in their entire lifetimes.

If you want to breed you don't need to have an enclosure full of dirt. You can keep the same setup just add a container of dirt that they can climb into. The females will lay eggs in the container and then you can remove the container and put it under a low wattage heat lamp for hatching in a dedicated pinhead enclosure instead of having it hatch in the same enclosure as the adults.

I normally don't buy pinhead crickets because fruit flies make a much better food for small mantids. Pinheads are a pain and when used for mantids they stay near the bottom and usually hide out where the mantis cannot get to them


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