How to house icky bugs
- Making a spiffy Container
If you plan on keeping bugs in a small container rather than housing them in a tank, heres a
great way to make a "ick" free home for your bugs. Sometimes, you can find a similar container
all ready to go in the pet stores, but they are easy to make for yourself.
Note: My frogs eat small crickets, so this works great on smaller to medium sized.
If you (or your pet*) have larger sized bug needs you can probably use the same techniques,
but make the container bigger also.
*that's a joke, silly!
- Take a large sized yogurt container. (I recommend one with at least a 2 and a half
inch base.) I've tried this with cheap tupperware but I think the plastic may have some kind of
chemicals in it because the crickets kept on dying in there, so you should probably stick
to a regular non-thick plastic food container)
- Poke a whole bunch of holes all over the sides of it. Use a thumbtack, so the holes are big enough
for air flow but not big enough for the cricket to eat their way out. (yes, I did say eat
their way out, these containers have to be replaced once every few months, my last one
lasted about 4 months so this isn't a very common occurance, and these containers get
kinda gross after a while, so you'll probably want to replace them anyway.)
- Cut a hole large enough to let out a few bugs in the lid
of the container. Best bet, cut the hole near the side of the container. Then, just
like a grated parmesan cheese dispenser, you will be able to shake the nasty bugs out as
a nice lunchtime treat for your froggies. Mmmm, yum!!
- Get a cork: try a rubber stopper or some sort of cork shaped item that
you can wedge into the top as a makeshift door, making sure the cork will be able to
close this door up such that even a really strong cricket couldn't get out. On
the containers that you can sometimes buy, (they run about 1.75$, it's too bad they
aren't always as easy to find!) there's a neat top that has a spout. If you are
lucky to have such an item handy, you can duplicate this with a second lid that fits over
the first lid, so that you simply remove the second lid, leaving the first lid with the
"escape hatch" in place on the container.
- Finally, an added but not absolutely necessary touch: get a piece of sponge, like a
long thin edge of sponge, and clean it really, really well so there aren't any chemicals
left in it. (even new sponges tend to have a few cleaning agents in them, so just soak
them and squish out water as much as you can...) Then,
using simple needle and thread, sew the sponge vertically to the side of your new bug
container on the inside by threading it to some of the air holes you made earlier on
one side. Now, when you go to shake out bugs, you won't get the sponge falling all over
the place either squishing and killing the bugs or blocking the escape hatch. Also, since
you should have lots of holes even under where the sponge is, you can occasionally tip it
under a faucet and drip some water onto the side of your container and rewet the sponge
without risking any bugs getting loose. Pretty neat, eh?
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I love my sweet, darling little froggies, but I have to confess that I still have
a hard time dealing with their diet. While I can deal with slimy little amphibians,
the bug scene never really appealed to me. There are, however, ways to deal with crickets
even for bug-sissies like myself. Here are a few tips for those out there who would prefer to
make a few extra trips to the store rather than dealing with raising hoards of bugs in their garage!