#17 - CRICKETS SUCK, MY TARANTULA FOOD STORY

Before I start today's blog entry I want to mention yesterday's #16B. It asks that you create a free Blogger account so you can add my KMBHS Blog to your Reading List. That's the only way I know to "subscribe". I'll was going to keep posting announcements via social media (e.g., Arachnoboards Facebook group, my Michael Jacobi's Spider Shoppe page, etc.) and sharing to my Google+ as well. However, I have learned that posting a link to something that contains profanity violates Arachnoboards' fucking Faffbook rules. So, I will have to cease posting there. Debby of AB suggested I create a FB page for KMBHS and I have just done. So click the link and like/follow for announcements of new entries if you don't want to bother with the Blogger account. OK, on to today's Blog...

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I am highly allergic to crickets. If I touch my face after touching crickets or their frass my eyes become itchy and swollen, dry and red, and I have sneezing fits. It can ruin my day. I take antihistamines every day due to this allergy. But I keep using them. Why?

Some of you will recall that from 2005-2007 I published a magazine called ARACHNOCULTURE. You can still access much of what was published in the 7 issues that were released on my website. You can use the preceding link, but the page can be found via exoticfauna.com or just use arachnoculture.com, which redirects to the Arachnoculture start page of my Exotic Fauna network of sites.

ARACHNOCULTURE contained a column I wrote called the "Back Page". Much like this Blog, it often contained a rant of sorts that tried its best to be humorous. In the premiere issue the Back Page article was titled "Crickets Suck". So you don't have to click a link to read I will post that here so you will know all of the reasons I hate crickets. Then I'll have to explain why I am still using them.

Crickets suck!

You know they do.

They chirp chirp chirp.
They attract other nasties.
They die and have a vulgar stench.
They just don't die soon enough if ya ask me.

We believe they give our critters worms.
Nematodes.
That's when they don't spring to safety just as they're about to me dropped into a cage only to die later in a corner and stink.
Did I mention they stink?

Cricket farms charge a lot of money. Apparently people still buy crickets.
Who'd want to be in the business of raising these vermin anyway?
Still, they give us a bonus.
That's right. Free flour moths and fuzzy worms in every box.
For a lot of money.

Crickets kill molting arachnids.
Crickets escape and leave hard tiny crap pellets in their wake.
Crickets have a life span of about 60 days. Two months too long.

Pet stores sell these vile creatures by the dozen.
The kid who gets them for you will count and make sure there isn't thirteen.
Eight will be alive when you get home. Probably the eight that can chirp.
Female crickets have ovipositors.
That's a fancy word for the thing pointing out of their butts.
Uneaten crickets will stick these things in the substrate and later your cage will be overrun with flea-size baby crickets.
Ain't that special?

Which brings me to the roach.
Now there's a bug to be fond of.
They breed like... well, roaches.
They eat things that are free or cheap.
They live a long time for a bug. Once a breeding colony is established you have almost free food forever.
In an assortment of sizes.
Hail the roach! The roach is good!

When I moved to Seattle to take over Tarantulas.com and become General Manager of Northwest Zoological Supply I began working for a company that among many other things sold over a half million crickets a week. They were plentiful and I began using them again. My above "Crickets Suck" states the many horrible traits of the cricket, but with obvious bias does not mention any positives. There are a few. For one thing crickets are hatched and raised in age groups, which translate to size groups. Therefore they come size-sorted and this is a major convenience. For roaches I've made nesting 5 gallon buckets with various size holes to size sort roaches and this works well, but it is an extra step over just dumping a box of crickets in a big tub and having several size groups at the ready when you are feeding.

When I moved back to Chicagoland 2 years and 4 months ago I had nothing. I had sold all my reptiles before leaving and all of my spiders had been purchased by Tarantulas.com/Northwest Zoological Supply when I was hired in 2007. I shut down my Nashville "Spider Shoppe and Living Terrarium" and the only animals of my own were my late dog Taylor and my parrot Jesse. So as I began to resume operations here in Huntley, Illinois as "Michael Jacobi's SPIDERSHOPPE" I just started buying crickets. They were convenient and inexpensive. A vendor at our local twice-a-month reptile show sells boxes of 1000 for $15 and they contain about 2000. But my allergy hadn't diminished and it wasn't long before I started thinking about breeding roaches again.

Previously, such as when I had my SpiderShoppe in Nashville, I bred Blaberus species and Blatta lateralis. I got away from using any crickets and was a happy man. But I made the mistake when I tried to start using roaches again two years ago to buy Blaptica dubia. These are common and cheap and are known for their great reproduction. But they suck too! I always use scientific names so I ignored their common name. It is Guyana burrowing roach and the burrowing part is why they are horrible for tarantulas. Unless they are pounced on immediately or you have the time or desire to offer by forceps (I don't and HATE when people post videos using forceps to feed tarantulas) they will burrow into the moss or substrate and will become the spider's "pet". In the end I was just using the adult male dubia for my adult spiders and trying my best to sell all the thousands of others I had. It was a waste of time to clean them and a waste of money to feed them. I definitely don't like dubia. I'm sure they're great if you have bearded dragons or monitor lizards, but - in my opinion - they suck for feeding tarantulas.

I also started breeding B. lateralis again thanks to a gift from my friend Kristy via my bud Apple. These little guys are called red runners and the babies are great for feeding spiderlings. Unlike dubia this is a great species for tarantulas. The main problem with them is that the adults are the size of adult crickets so they aren't great for big tarantulas. The other problem with them is that they are very closely related to pest roach species and you don't want them loose in your house.

So here's how I got back to crickets and no longer have any roaches in my house... Before I went to Sri Lanka for four weeks in November/December 2014 I decided that I wasn't going to pay somebody to take care of the dubia that I was barely using. As I wrote, I'd use some of the adult males to feed adult tarantulas, but mainly I was trying to sell them and it wasn't worth the effort. I paid my friend Randy in spiders to take care of my tarantula collection while I was gone and wasn't going to have him also take care of the roaches. So at the October 2014 Tinley Park NARBC I sold off all the dubia in bulk. One species gone. I had intended to keep breeding the lateralis, but then I had some escape. I don't have a "Shoppe" anymore. I work out of my very nice house. Seeing lateralis babies on my basement bathroom floor pissed me off. It was winter and I was tempted to just put the entire tub outside to freeze. But I was able to find friends who wanted some and I passed on red runner genocide.

So now I am back to crickets. You wouldn't think a guy who wrote the above "Crickets Suck" would ever use one again. Irony. Life is strange. So, in closing, I'll tell you how I care for my crickets. I buy several sizes in bulk at a price that is very attractive. They are size sorted. I have thousands of tarantulas to feed and it makes my life easier. I pop an antihistamine. I try to remember not to touch my face. I wash my hands often. I try to clean their tubs just before taking a shower. I use big storage tubs, one for each size. Near the top of the inside I put a ring of 2" clear packing tape to prevent them from climbing out. I cut away most of the center of the lid leaving a protective ring (see photos).

I clean the cricket tubs daily to keep down on the frass and my allergic reaction and to keep them clean and healthy. I use a mini whisk broom and mini dust pan set you can get at Target or WalMart. I feed Fluker's Cricket Diet and use homemade "cricket quencher" for water. The latter is made with polyacrylamide crystals I buy in bulk from watersorb.com. Pour a 2 oz. condiment cup's worth into an empty gallon jug and fill 90% of the way with tap water. Let sit for a few hours or overnight and Voila! I offer them nothing else.

The largest size I buy is "5/8". I don't want winged chirping crickets and I don't want crickets with ovipositors laying eggs in my tarantula enclosures so I don't buy adults. I feed as many as I can and then within a week they do reach adulthood. At that point I stop using them as food. I put a shallow (2" high) tray of very moist coco coir in for 48 hours. Then I pull the tray, which is now full of eggs, and incubate it at 88-90ºF for 9 days to get pinheads to feed my baby huntsman and wandering spiders. For pinheads I may offer some greens or orange slices because they need some moisture. They'll seek cover under the leaves of greens and have higher humidity. If you keep them bone dry like you should for adults they will die.  Then, after the 48 hours or so of egg laying, I just go out to the field next to my house and dump the adult crickets. If you have the time you can go through and separate male and female into two tubs and still use the males as food, but I don't have that kind of time or desire. I am happy to just dump them all as I don't want to hear the chirping males either. In colder weather, well, they freeze to death.

I get more pinheads than I need so they get raised up for a week or two and become great food for my spiderlings that only costs extra labor and food/quencher. With three or four sizes of crickets I maintain my collection without the labor of roach breeding. Somehow I've come full circle and nobody is more surprised than me. Crickets still suck. They suck monkey ass. But, they are convenient and with a huge collection anything that expedites care and maintenance is welcome. Crickets are certainly easiest for small collections as roaches quickly breed and populations get out of control. I still recommend you use roaches for medium to large collections, but I don't recommend Blaptica dubia. A colony each of "discoids" and "lats" is best. But, for now, at least until I move my collection back into commercial space, I have returned to using crickets. Who would have thunk it?!?