The tubs that livefoods are commonly sold in are not ideal environments for keeping and maintaining crickets prior to feeding your reptiles. They should be emptied into a larger tub or bin. Smooth sided black plastic dustbins are excellent, as they are deep enough so that crickets cannot jump out and the lid can be left off to provide good ventilation.
Place a pile of large egg cartons in the bin along with some cardboard toilet roll or kitchen roll tubes, to enable the crickets to hide. Don’t stack too high or they will start jumping out.
In addition to “dusting” crickets with Vitarep or Calcimax vitamin & mineral supplements, prior to feeding to your reptiles, it is essential to feed up the crickets with a high quality livefood diet such as Naturerep Nutriboost. Crickets are like empty envelopes and lack nutrition unless they themselves are fed a good diet before being offered to your reptiles. Nutriboost provides essential nutrition elements to your livefeeds. Moisture is best provided with sliced apple, potato or orange.
To catch crickets ready for feeding, place a pint glass or large jar into the bin, tap in an appropriate amount of crickets from the toilet roll/kitchen roll tubes. Dust the crickets with a pinch of Vitarep and/or Calcimax, shake glass to distribute the powder over the crickets, release them into the vivarium. Do not feed too many crickets to your reptile at one time as crickets not eaten immediately will loose their gut content and their supplement coating.
