In reading this informative article regarding how to care for crickets, you will learn the benefits of keeping crickets healthy, to provide reptile food for your exotic pet. Crickets from the pet store are frequently hungry and lacking in nourishment. It is not beneficial to your reptile or arthropodhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/36943/arthropod] to feed them the crickets you bring home straight from the store. Feed the crickets first. "Feed the food" means feeding and caring for the crickets before you give them to your pet.

In How to Care for Crickets, you will learn How to Set Up a Cricket Habitat, How to Feed Crickets, How to Breed Crickets, and How to Dust Crickets with Reptile Calcium Powder. Using calcium dust is not for the sake of the cricket, it is for the health of your exotic pet.

Only the male crickets chirp. Some people find it nice to hear the chirping at night, coming from their habitat. Others do not. Placement of the habitat is something to consider.

Crickets are easy to raise and can save you a lot of money. Adult crickets will eat cricket eggs and hatchlings. They need a separate container.

Gut-Loading:[http://www.reptilecare.com/crickets.htm To gut load, you need to keep and care for the crickets ahead of time, before feeding them to your exotic pet. Table scraps of produce make great cricket food and give them a well-rounded diet.

While at the pet store buying crickets (start with about 2 dozen large crickets), buy a see-through “critter keeper” or a small glass aquarium. If you plan to breed crickets, the aquarium works best. It needs to have a fine mesh screen top that locks, or a container with a secure top especially designed for crickets, with escape-proof air vents.

Put a 2-inch layer of "substrate" on the bottom of the aquarium. The same substrate used for your exotic pet is usually ideal for the crickets as well. A blend of potting soil, purchased from the pet store and placed in a separate small container, is ideal for female crickets to burrow and lay their eggs, if you plan to breed them. In this case, the substrate in the general habitat can be clean newspaper, sand, or other bedding not conducive to burrowing. This encourages the crickets to burrow and lay eggs in the special cricket breeding container.

In a very shallow water dish, place a piece of sponge and water. The crickets will get their water from the sponge. Plus, they will not drown in a dish of water.

Crickets like fish food a lot. Even though it’s a bit smelly, pour some “fish flakes” into a small feeding dish. It provides a lot of protein and other nutrients. In the dish, also place a small carrot, a piece of apple, some cucumber or whatever produce you have handy.

Cardboard egg cartons, cut up and placed in the habitat, prevent “cage angst” and give the crickets a place to hide. If you don't have any handy, crumpled newspaper works, too. Now, empty the bag of crickets into their new home and securely close the top. You are on your way to a healthy exotic pet.

First, check the vivarium every few days and remove any dead crickets. This eliminates odor and the possible contamination of the living crickets.

Making sure that your crickets have fresh food and water prepares them to be healthy reptile food for your pet tarantula, lizards, and other exotic pets. This is known as "gut loading." Here's how easy it can be: if you prepare a salad for humans, take things like cucumber skins, tomato ends, and all the bits of produce you would otherwise throw away. Place these items in the cricket habitat. The more variety the better. An orange slice is popular with crickets and provides Vitamin C and good water content.

Some cricket breeders buy all-in-one cricket food for the sake of convenience, but it is not necessary if you have a few minutes a day to tend to your crickets.

Check to make sure that the food in the cricket habitat does not spoil. Change it every few days.

Within every dozen crickets, there will be males and females. The female crickets are easy to spot because they have 2 prongs and a long very slim tube that extends from their posterior. This is the egg tube. In the small container of moist potting soil you put in the habitat, the female will burrow down into the substrate and deposit her eggs.

Take the container of potting soil and eggs out every few days and place it in a separate larger container. Replace the breeding tub with a fresh one. When the baby "pinhead crickets" hatch in their own habitat, they should find the same food, water and shelter waiting for them as in the vivarium housing their parents. The separate container is important, because cricket eggs and baby crickets are popular food for adult crickets. If you are successful with your breeding program, you will eliminate the need to buy more crickets. Plus, crickets are fun to watch, whether you own an exotic pet or not!

Before you feed your healthy gut-loaded crickets to your exotic pet, take a few of them, and place them in a plastic sandwich bag along with a small amount of reptile calcium supplement in the form of powder. Shake gently. Release the dusted crickets into your pet's vivarium. After 2 days, remove any uneaten crickets. If you like, it is a kindness to the cricket to rinse it before you return it to its vivarium. No one likes being unnecessarily covered with calcium dust!

Why is it important to dust crickets? Exotic pets in captivity and not in the wild typically are lacking in calcium. Dustinganswers.yahoo.com: [1] your gut-loaded crickets will prevent this.