Cricket Care Sheet: Housing, Gut-Loading & Keeping Them Alive

If you keep reptiles, there’s a good chance crickets are already part of your life — or about to be.

I’ve kept feeder crickets for years to feed my leopard gecko and bearded dragon, and the honest truth is that keeping them alive and healthy is something most guides make more complicated than it needs to be. Once you understand what crickets actually need, it’s straightforward.

This guide covers everything: setting up a cricket enclosure, keeping them alive long-term, gut-loading them properly so they pass on real nutritional value to your reptile, and the practicalities nobody warns you about (yes, they are loud, and yes, they do smell).

Quick Reference: Cricket Care Summary

Enclosure Setup

Tank Size and Type

A 10-gallon tank is the minimum for a small cricket colony. For larger numbers — 250 or more crickets at a time — a 20-gallon or a purpose-built cricket keeper works better. The priority is floor space, not height.

Purpose-built cricket enclosures — the kind that come with removable tubes — are genuinely worth buying if you plan to keep crickets long-term. The tubes serve as hides and make it dramatically easier to collect individual crickets at feeding time without them all scattering. I switched to one after months of fighting loose crickets at feeding time and I won’t go back.

Whatever enclosure you use, the lid must be secure. House crickets (Acheta domesticus) are excellent escape artists, and a cricket loose in your house is both a nuisance and a welfare issue for the cricket. Cover any ventilation mesh with fine screen — standard tank mesh has gaps large enough for small crickets to squeeze through.

Substrate

Substrate is optional but recommended for ease of cleaning. Without it, dead crickets and waste accumulate directly on the glass, which needs cleaning every 2-3 days to prevent ammonia buildup — the main culprit behind mass cricket die-offs.

The best options:

• Newspaper or paper towels — cheap, easy to swap out, no risk of impaction if a cricket ingests it
• Coconut coir / coco husk — good moisture absorption, natural, easy to spot-clean
• No substrate at all — fine if you clean frequently; a bare floor makes it easier to spot dead crickets quickly

Avoid sand, wood shavings, or anything fine — these can trap moisture and create the damp conditions that kill crickets fast.

Shelter and Hides

Crickets are naturally nocturnal and need places to hide. Without adequate shelter, they pile on top of each other, which causes stress, injury, and rapid death from crushing.

The cheapest and most effective solution is cardboard egg crates, stacked diagonally inside the enclosure. They give crickets multiple levels to spread across, are free from most supermarkets, and can be thrown away when soiled. If you’re using a purpose-built cricket keeper, the included tubes do this job well.

Temperature and Lighting

Temperature is the most important variable in cricket keeping. According to research from the University of Exeter’s Department of Biosciences, Acheta domesticus (the house cricket most commonly sold as feeder insects) thrives between 28–32°C (82–90°F) and significantly increases egg production and hatching rates in this range. For a feeder colony you don’t need to push that high — 70–85°F (21–29°C) is the practical range for a healthy colony, with 80°F as the sweet spot.

Below 65°F, crickets become sluggish, stop eating, and die quickly. Most home environments stay warm enough without a heat source, but if your house drops significantly at night, a small heat mat placed under one side of the enclosure (never inside it) will maintain temperature.

Lighting requirements are simple: none. Crickets do not need UVB or any special light. Ambient room light with a natural day/night cycle is all they need. This is one area where cricket keeping is far simpler than reptile keeping.

Humidity and Water

This is where most people lose crickets — and it’s almost always because the enclosure is either too wet or completely without a water source.

Keep humidity between 40–50%. High humidity creates the ideal conditions for bacterial growth and the cricket-killing pathogen Acheta domesticus densovirus (AdDNV), which can wipe out an entire colony within days. Good ventilation and a dry environment are your best defences.

At the same time, crickets die quickly without access to water. The solution is to provide water without creating wet conditions:

• Water crystals / gel — the best option. They release moisture slowly, crickets can drink from them without drowning, and they don’t create puddles or wet areas
• Shallow dish with pebbles or cotton balls — crickets can drink from the moisture in the cotton or climb the pebbles in a shallow dish without risk of drowning
• Wet vegetables — cucumber, carrot, and orange slices all provide hydration through food rather than a separate water source. This is my preferred method because it also doubles as nutrition

Never put open water in a cricket enclosure. They drown in even very shallow dishes. I learned this the hard way with my first cricket colony — a standard water bottle cap was enough to kill a dozen crickets overnight.

Feeding Crickets: Gut-Loading Explained

This is the most important section in this guide for reptile owners. A cricket is essentially a nutritional vessel — whatever it eats in the 24-48 hours before being fed to your reptile is what your reptile gets. A poorly fed cricket passes on almost nothing of value. A well gut-loaded cricket is one of the best nutritional sources you can offer.

Best Gut-Loading Foods

Feed a variety rather than a single food source — diversity in the cricket’s diet translates to a more complete nutritional profile for your reptile.

Excellent gut-load options:

• Leafy greens — collard greens, mustard greens, dandelion greens, kale (in moderation). High in calcium and vitamins
• Vegetables — carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash. Good vitamin A and beta-carotene content
• Fruit — apple slices, mango, papaya. Also provides moisture
• Commercial cricket food — Repashy Bug Burger, Fluker’s High-Calcium Cricket Diet, and similar products are formulated for maximum nutritional transfer. Worth using alongside fresh food

Avoid:

• Spinach and broccoli in large amounts — high in oxalates which bind to calcium
• Citrus fruits — the acidity can stress crickets
• Onion, garlic — toxic
• Anything mouldy or rotten — introduce bacteria into the enclosure and kill crickets fast

Calcium Dusting

Gut-loading improves overall nutrition, but calcium dusting addresses a specific and critical gap. Most feeder insects have a poor calcium-to-phosphorus ratio — they contain far more phosphorus than calcium, which can contribute to metabolic bone disease in reptiles over time.

Immediately before feeding crickets to your reptile, place them in a small container with a pinch of calcium powder (without D3 for regular feedings — your reptile’s UVB handles D3) and give it a gentle shake. A light coating on each cricket is all you need. For more detail on why calcium supplementation matters, our guide on bearded dragon calcium requirements covers the science thoroughly.

Feeding Crickets to Your Reptile

Sizing Crickets Correctly

The golden rule: never feed a cricket larger than the space between your reptile’s eyes. A cricket that’s too large is a genuine risk — it can cause impaction, gut damage, and in extreme cases neurological issues. When in doubt, go smaller.

For full feeding guides for specific species, see our bearded dragon cricket feeding guide, leopard gecko care sheet, and crested gecko care sheet.

Remove Uneaten Crickets

Don’t leave live crickets loose in your reptile’s enclosure. Crickets will bite sleeping reptiles — they’ve been known to cause significant injuries, particularly around the eyes and toes — and they stress animals that aren’t actively hunting. Only introduce as many crickets as your reptile will eat in a 15-minute feeding session, then remove any that remain.

Breeding Crickets

Breeding your own feeder crickets is not necessary — most reptile owners simply buy in batches as needed — but if you keep multiple reptiles or want to reduce ongoing costs, it’s a viable option once you’ve got a stable colony running.

Sexing Crickets

Female house crickets have three appendages at their rear: two cerci (short, curved) and an ovipositor (long, straight, used for egg-laying). Males have only the two cerci. Once you know what to look for it’s immediately obvious.

Egg-Laying Setup

To breed crickets, add a separate egg-laying container to your main enclosure — a small tub filled with 2–3 inches of moist coco coir or damp sand works well. Females will lay eggs into it. Remove the container after 1–2 weeks and incubate it separately at around 85°F with high humidity until eggs hatch — typically 10–14 days for house crickets.

Keep hatchlings (nymphs) in their own separate enclosure away from adults, which will eat them. Start them on finely crushed commercial cricket food and tiny pieces of vegetable until they’re large enough to be offered to your reptile.

The Honest Downsides of Keeping Crickets

No cricket care guide would be complete without this section — and most of them skip it entirely. Here’s what to expect before you commit to keeping a colony.

• Noise. Male house crickets chirp. They chirp loudly, continuously, and — because they’re nocturnal — predominantly at night. If you’re sensitive to sound while sleeping, don’t keep crickets in or near the bedroom. A garage, utility room, or spare room is a much better location
• Smell. A well-maintained cricket enclosure is manageable, but if cleaning slips — even for a few days — the ammonia smell from waste becomes very noticeable. Stick to a strict cleaning schedule and the smell stays controlled
• Escapes. Crickets will find any gap in the enclosure. One loose cricket is annoying. Twenty loose crickets in your house is a genuinely unpleasant evening. Check your lid seal regularly and don’t open the enclosure quickly without being deliberate about it
• Die-offs. Cricket colonies can crash suddenly and completely — usually from disease (particularly AdDNV), temperature fluctuation, or moisture buildup. This is a normal part of cricket keeping. Have a backup supply plan so you’re not caught without feeders when it happens

For all of these reasons, many reptile owners prefer to buy crickets in small quantities (25–50 at a time) and store them for 1–2 weeks rather than maintaining a permanent breeding colony. There’s no shame in that approach — it’s simpler, less smelly, and less stressful for the keeper.

Why Are My Crickets Dying? Common Causes

Mass cricket die-offs are frustrating but almost always have an identifiable cause. Here are the most common:

• Too much moisture — the number one killer. Wet substrate, condensation, or a water dish creates the warm, damp conditions that pathogens thrive in. Improve ventilation and switch to water crystals
• No water source — crickets dehydrate quickly. If they have nothing to drink, they die within 24-48 hours. Always have water crystals or moist vegetable available
• Temperature too low — below 65°F crickets become immune-compromised and die quickly. Check your enclosure temperature, especially at night in cooler months
• Overcrowding — too many crickets in too small a space leads to stress, cannibalism, and disease spread. Ensure adequate space and egg crate hides for the number you’re keeping
• Disease (AdDNV) — Acheta domesticus densovirus can wipe out an entire colony rapidly. There is no treatment. Discard the entire colony, thoroughly clean and disinfect the enclosure, and start fresh

Wrapping Up

Keeping feeder crickets well is a skill worth developing if you keep lizards or other insectivorous reptiles. A healthy, well gut-loaded cricket is one of the best foods you can offer — far more nutritionally complete than a poorly maintained cricket bought in a box and fed the same day.

Get the temperature right, keep it dry, provide water without open dishes, gut-load for 24-48 hours before feeding, and dust with calcium. That’s genuinely most of it.

Any questions about cricket keeping or feeding your reptiles — leave them in the comments below.

Frequently Asked Questions