A look at ways to minimise contact with insects when feeding beardies.

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Small boxes of crickets purchased from a petshop should be put in the fridge for 10 minutes to slow the crickets down. Once slowed, the entire contents of the tub can then be poured into a larger cricket tank. See our Feeder Insect Guides for details of how we set up our cricket tanks.

 

However, crickets purchased in bulk through mail order usually arrive in large nylon sacks, as shown below. These are the hardest type to deal with, as they are often too bulky to fit in a refrigerator:

 

 

Once the bag has arrived, get a tank to put the crickets into. At this point it should be completely empty.

 

Hold the bag upright (but closed!) and give it a shake to make sure any crickets attached to the sides fall to the bottom of the bag. Carefully open the bag; there should be egg cartons or balls of newspaper in the bag, which are likely to have crickets on them. Remove these one by one whilst holding the bag over the tank that the crickets will be going into.

 

 

Place this in the tank, and repeat until all of the egg cartons or newspaper has been removed. At this point you should only have crickets and possibly bran in the bottom of the bag:

 

 

Give the bag another shake to get the crickets to the bottom of the bag again. Pour the contents of the bag into the tank, including the bran (this will give the crickets some dry food to eat in addition to the fishfood and wet food that they need)

 

Once all of the loose bran and crickets are in the tank, hold the bag vertically upside down over the tank and - starting at the highest point - begin to flick the bag to knock any crickets attached to the bag into the tank. It is possible to skip a few steps and just pour the crickets in together with the egg cartons or newspaper, but you run the risk of crickets escaping or being crushed by falling egg carton.

 

 

Once all of the crickets are in the tank, carefully tilt it to around 45 degrees to make everything slide to one end. Add a shallow dish with a wet paper towel and some greens / fruit / squash to the higher end. Add fishfood to the lower end. Tilting the tank ensures no crickets will be trapped or squashed under the bowl, and makes it easier to separate the "wet" and "dry" sides of the tank, if that's the method you use.

 

This is the final result - 500 Brown Field Crickets safely in their tank ready to be gutloaded, and not a single escapee:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting the crickets safely out of the tank, dusting them if required, and then feeding them to your dragon can seem a little daunting if you don't like insects. Here's how we do it to minimise contact with the insects.

 

Firstly, open the cage and pick up an egg carton with crickets on it. If there are too many on the egg carton, gently shake it whilst still inside the tank until you have roughly the number you want to feed. As long as you are fairly quick, the crickets will stay on the egg carton and not come onto your hands.

 

 

Put the egg carton with crickets on into the top of a clean plastic bag.

 

 

Shake both the egg carton and the bag. This will detach the crickets and they will fall into the bottom of the bag. Put the egg carton back into the tank. If you need more crickets, simply repeat the process using another egg carton. The crickets will now be trapped at the bottom the plastic bag.

 

If your dragon has trouble catching the crickets, seal the bag and place it in the fridge for 5-10 minutes to slow the crickets down and give your Dragon an advantage.

 

Add Vitamin or Calcium powder if required (see Caresheet for our recommended supplementation schedule). A little bit of powder can be added directly to the bag:

 

 

Close the top of the bag and gently shake to cover the crickets in dust.

 

Pour the entire contents of the bag into the cage. We use shallow plastic plant pot trays to make it easier to clean any excess dust out of the cage. Powder that has been used tends to be slightly damp so don't add it back to the pot. Powder will usually keep for up to 48 hours in the dusting bag, so you can reuse it for several feeds.