Now days cricket insects are emerging as pets but most of the time people buy them from pet store as a meal for their reptile pets.
Whether we keep them as pets or feeding them to reptile pets, we dont want them to die due to our negligence.
How long do cricket lives?
On an average crickets live for 90 days but lifespan can vary depending upon their types. Field crickets live for 90 days, camel cricket live for 1 to 2 years and house crickets live for 60 to 90 days. Usually, female crickets die shortly after laying eggs.
Cricket is still not popular option to keep as a pet, people often buying them to feed their other pets like reptiles, turtles etc. Since we are feeding them to our pets, its natural to understand how long they live, how to keep them safe and what they eat.
The lifespan of crickets hughly depends upon factors like their species, what setting they are live in and what they are eating.
Crickets are insects and belongs to the Gryllidae family which hosts around 2400 species of insects. Major types of crickets that one can easily encounter are field, camel cricket (also known as cave cricket) and house cricket.
Each cricket species has male and female. Male crickets are known to produce “Chirping sound” by rubbling their wings togehter. This sound is called as stridulation and male cricket produce it for attracting females.
Female crickets lays thousands of eggs which hatch into nymphs after incubation period of 14 days. Nymphs then grow as an adult.
Mole crickets live longer than the other species. Male crickets from other species die afte mating season and female continue to live untill nymphs hatch out of eggs.
How much do crickets cost?
A single live cricket insect can cost around $0.07 but price can range from 0.03 to $0.10 depending upon your location, sotre you are buying from, season and whether you buying first time or recurring buyer. Recuuring buyers often gets discount from cricket sellers.
Feeder crickets are available buy in pet store and online ecommerce websites. Usually, price revolve around 7 cents for a single feeder cricket but can down upto 3 cents.
You can buy them online at Amazon, Petco and few other sellets. Crickets can be ordered in a batch of 100 to 1000’s. Mature crickets are a bit cheaper than that of youger crickets.
What are Types of Crickets?
So far hundreds of cricket species has been indentified but the most common types of crickets are field crickets, cave crickets, mormon crickets and house crickets.
Though all types of crickets falls under the same family, they have some distinct difference between them. Lets have a look at each of these type.
Field Crickets
Field crickets often found at yard or field but can enter in the apartments and are known to chirp day and night. They are also called as “black cricket“.
Though they are commonly found at field, they can be also be found at waste material around the home or in the garden under the mulch or plant leaves.
The cracks or holes in the wall or windows are the common entrance points for cricket to get in to your home. You will realize immediately once they enter the home since they chirp continuously. Field crickets close their wings rapidly to create the chirping sound.
Field crickets can be used as bait for fishing or as food for pets.
Cave Crickets
Cave crickets has longer back legs due to which they gets a hump like arch on back that resemblse as camel. So,they are commonly known as camel cricket.
The most interesting thing about cave crickets is they are not able to create a chirp sound since the lack the wings that requires to produce the sound.
They are named as cave cricket because they usually choose to live in cool and humid places like caves, under woodpiles, bathroom, laundry room and debris. Since they choose to live in cool places in home, they can be kept as pets.
Cave cricket eat mold, fungi, wood, other insects etc. Sometime they may eat other crickets. Indoor cave crickets often found feasting on the fabrics like curtain, carpets, clothes etc.
House Crickets
House crickets are popular among the pet owners as feeder insect since they are a rich source of proteins.
They are popular for their unique chirping sound which they generate by rubbing their wings together. House crickets are yellowish-brown in color and has three dark bands on head and thorax.
Generally, house cricket prefers to live in warm area in home and can found near fireplaces but can als be found under the tiles, bricks and woods.
Do crickets need water?
Crickets need water to survive. They drink water in small quantity and if you are keeping them as pet or as a feedeer insects, you need to keep a wet sponge in a plate near their habitat so that they get enough water.
While keeping the drinking water for crickets you need to consider the fact that they can drown easily. So, do not keep the open water source near them.
Instead, keeping a wet sponge in a plate can help.
Do crickets need light?
Generally, crickets prefer living in the dark space but can attrack to the bright light during night. Room with an ambient lighting with temperature between 80 to 90 degree F is sufficient for helathy growth of crickets.
To maintain the steady growth of crickets, keep them in dark area. In cool area, they often die and eat other while in hot area they end up having short lifespan.
Can you keep crickets in the fridge?
No, you can’t keep crickets in fridge since they can’t tolerate to much cold and die. Incase you still want to keep them in fridge, keep them for few minutes and take it out. Keeping them in fridge can slow down their activity and it takes a while for them to start jumping and chirping again. For better growth, you can keep them in places with temperature between 80° F to 90 ° F.
Do feeder crickets have wings?
Yes, male and female crickets have wings and they create chirping sound by rubbing these wings together. Scientist identified almost 900 species of crickets and each one has unique chirping sound.
