Black Crickets (Field Crickets)

Black crickets or Gryllus Bimaculatis are native to southern Europe. Each and every week throughout the year, Livefoods Direct breeds a minimum of 500,000 black crickets for its UK customers.

Black crickets have similar qualities to brown crickets as a livefood and in nutritional terms are almost identical. Slightly larger than brown crickets they will withstand the high humidity required by certain reptile species better than the brown crickets.

Black crickets provide a highly nutritious diet (58.4% protein as a % of dry matter) for both birds and reptiles. Bred on Progrub, a protein rich meal blended specifically for cricket rearing by Livefoods Direct.

Because black crickets are a European field species they are fairly hardy and travel reasonably well in moderately cold weather. However the crickets may appear dead on arrival if temperatures fall below zero degrees celsius in transit. If this should happen the crickets should be left in their shipping container and moved to a very warm room immediately. After 30 minutes the crickets should recover and can be handled and transferred to their storage container in the normal manner.

Black crickets are sold in a variety of sizes to suit all needs.

HOW DO WE FEED BLACK CRICKETS TO OUR PETS?

Simply place a few black crickets in the vivarium.  Not too many as they can nibble on your pet, especially when it sleeps.  To help transfer the crickets into the vivarium, and avoid touching them, you can use tubes.  Old toilet roll tubes will work fine or you can make thinner and longer tubes using rolled up paper or card.  Place the tubes in the cricket container (you may need a larger container so there is enough space).  The black crickets will then gather in the tubes and when you need some you can just pick up a tube, cover the ends, and tip into the vivarium.

HOW SHOULD WE STORE THE BLACK CRICKETS?

Crickets should be kept in a cool, dry, well-ventilated area, out of direct sunlight and ideally at 16-20 degrees celsius.  Black crickets are available in convenient tubs, or in more economical bulk sacks.  Bulk crickets will need transferring to a larger well-ventilated container on arrival.  Food such as bran, oats, fruit and vegetables (carrot,potato,apple etc.) should be provided.  Nutritional contents and calcium in particular can be further increased by also feeding with Progrub.