Feeder Cricket Lifespan: What To Expect!

Cultivating them isn’t a difficult task, but what is a Feeder Cricket’s lifespan? This is what you can expect!

Feeder Crickets are a great source of protein and other nutrients for captive pets. Whether you’re cultivating them for your own reptiles or you’re starting a business, knowing how long they live will help you plan better.

In this article, I share what a Feeder Cricket’s lifespan looks like and how you can help yours live a longer, healthier one!

Feeder Cricket Lifespan: What To Expect

Feeder Crickets gained popularity in the 1950s when exotic pet owners in Southwestern Asia started using them as live food.

This cricket’s lifespan is only about 8 to 10 weeks. They stay small for 3 weeks and then almost double in size from there. An adult Feeder Cricket’s lifespan is 30 to 40 days.

How To Keep Feeder Crickets Alive For Longer

If you’re a pet owner cultivating Feeder Crickets for your reptile, amphibian, or arachnid, you probably want to do what you can do to keep these critters alive for longer.

It’s easy to extend a Feeder Crickets’ life by at least two weeks. Keep this in mind to achieve your goal:

Enclosure: Get a large tank to house your Feeder Crickets. If they’re cramped up in a small enclosure, they can trample each other to death.

Diet: Feeder Crickets need to be fed regularly to ensure their overall health and keep them from eating each other. If you have specific cricket’s that you’d like to keep alive for even longer, you can place them in a separate tank and withhold food and water. Dehydrated adult crickets can stay alive for about two weeks longer.

Water: You’ll need to provide your crickets with a good source of clean water to keep them healthy. They can also easily drown, so use a small shallow dish.

Temperature: The enclosure you use to keep your Feeder Crickets should maintain a consistent temperature that mimics a sunny day in your area. Just remember to place your cricket tank in a dark room.

If you keep these points in mind and do everything correctly, your crickets can live for 8 to 10 weeks, and beyond.

Note: Crickets can die of old age, so don’t try to prolong their life for too long.

What To Feed Your Feeder Crickets To Gut Load

While feeder crickets by themselves are pretty rich in nutrients, you may still want to gut load.

Gut loading has some obvious benefits, with the main being that the nutrients absorbed by the cricket will be passed on to your pet when you feed it to them.

Crickets aren’t picky eaters, which makes feeding them a simple task. You can feed your crickets any of these:

Alfalfa
Apples
Baby Rice Cereal
Carrots
Collard Greens
Dry Cat Food
Kale
Mustard Greens
Oranges
Potato Peelings
Prepackaged Reptile Foods
Romaine
Squash
Sweet Potatoes
Tropical Fish Flakes
Wheat Germ

Giving your Feeder Crickets a variety of these foods will gut load them while simultaneously ensuring that they live long, healthy lives.

The Best Container For Keeping Feeder Crickets

There aren’t any specifics on what type of container works best for Feeder Crickets, as long as it’s large.

Remember that your container lid should have enough holes to let in air and ensure proper ventilation. You can cover your holes with fine screen mesh to prevent enterprising crickets from escaping.

You can also put some egg cartons in your tank and use some jar lids for feeding your crickets.

Which Pets Like Feeder Crickets

Lots of pets will be pretty happy to have Feeder Crickets for dinner. For some pets, crickets can make up the main part of their diet, and for others, they should only be given as snacks.

Reptiles like bearded dragons, geckos, chameleons, and iguanas are primarily insectivores. This means they love a juicy gut-loaded cricket!

Note: You should always gut-load your crickets before serving them to ensure your pet gets the most nutrients from them.

Spiders

Spiders kept as pets are mostly from larger species like wolf spiders and tarantulas. While tiny spiderlings probably won’t catch crickets, these large ones enjoy dining on fat Feeder Cricket.

Frogs

Frogs will be more than happy with a portion of crickets, roaches, flies, or locusts!

Although frogs eat almost anything, Feeder Crickets are the easiest to buy and feed to your pet frog. If you cultivate and gut-load your own Feeder Crickets, there’s no need to hunt for roaches, flies, or locusts for your froggy friend.

Tortoises

Pet tortoises can and should have some crickets for lunch. Feeder Crickets will provide a much-needed source of protein to your tortoise.

Do Feeder Crickets Have Enough Nutrients?

While reptiles and amphibians in captivity enjoy crunchy Feeder Crickets, these critters do lack calcium.

Calcium is essential for captive pets, so giving your Feeder Crickets a good dusting with calcium powder will do the trick.

Final Words

Feeder Crickets are easy to maintain and even easier to serve to your pets! Their one of the best protein sources for small captive reptiles, frogs, and spiders – especially when they’re gut-loaded!

To keep your Feeder Crickets in good condition, ensure that they have clean water, fresh food, and proper ventilation.

I hope this article gave you all the information you needed to know how to care for and expand the lifespan of your Feeder Crickets. If you have any more questions, ask them in the comments!

Why do my Feeder Crickets keep dying?

If your Feed Crickets keep dying, your tank may be too small, it receives too little ventilation, or you might not be keeping it clean enough.

How do I keep Feeder Crickets alive?

To keep your Feeder Crickets alive and healthy, you need to have a large enclosure, enough ventilation, nutritious food, and clean water.

How long do Feeder Crickets live without food?

Adult Feeder Crickets can live up to two weeks without food and water.

Do Feeder Crickets need water?

Yes.

Feeder Crickets need clean water daily.