I ordered a box of crickets from the Internet and it went about as well as you’d expect

Washington Post ^ | December 30, 2018 | Christopher Ingraham

[EdnaMode]

For Christmas this year, my family adopted a young bearded dragon lizard as a pet.

Our dragon, whom we named Holly, eats a lot, and the thing she loves to eat most is crickets (typically about 10 a day, in addition to other things like mealworms and vegetables). From the get-go, I knew that keeping an ample supply of crickets on hand would require some planning. We live in a rural area of northwestern Minnesota. The closest pet shop is an hour away, in North Dakota. Restocking our cricket supply would require a time commitment of at least two hours out and back.

By Christmas Day this year, Holly’s cricket supply was running low. I decided to order crickets online, which I had never done before, to save a trip to North Dakota. I bought the crickets from Fluker Farms, one of the more well-established online insect vendors (yes, these exist and there are a lot of them). I decided on a shipment of 250 crickets, which seemed like a reasonable amount for a lizard who is theoretically capable of gobbling up to 50 of them every day.

[EdnaMode]

Crickets everywhere!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Extracted from HTML:

https://outline.com/ygX9wy

[blueunicorn6]

“A young Bearded Dragon Lizard”

This is what happens when you bring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez into your house.

[BillyBonebrake]

The roasted ones with chile lime flavor are delicious.

[raybbr]

I absolutely abhor the sound of crickets. Why anyone would consider a reptile a pet is beyond me.

[Deaf Smith]

Go out back of your favorite grocery store and grab a banana box out of the dumpster.

Place the banana box in your kitchen.

In a few weeks you will have a growing supply of German Roachs to feed your lizard.

Glade to be of assistance.

[skr]

No bait shops in the land of 10,000 lakes? Our Ace Hardware has crickets.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“Why anyone would consider a reptile a pet is beyond me.”

I will admit that I LOVED the feel of a friend’s Ball Python in my hands (that sounds dirty but it is not!) but I don’t get it, either.

My Mom was a, ‘Crazy Bird Lady’ for a while with Cockatiels, Finches, and Canaries.

Never understood that either, and thank goodness THAT phase of her life is over. I was CERTAIN she’d be moving up to a Parrot and I’d be stuck with the thing 50 years later! ;)

[Bob434]

Saw a ‘dirty jobs’ episode on raising crickets for commercial sales- wow- there is a lot involved-

[bgill]

Who spends hard earned dollars on bugs?

Also, who warms a pie on the counter?

[Redcitizen]

I wish I was in Tijuana eating barbecued iguana.

From the song: “Mexican Radio” by Wall of Voodoo :)

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Crickets are almost as fun as Guppies to feed to African Cichlids. The only problem is the Cichlids don’t like the legs.

[ptsal]

Drag a box thru Minneapolis and you will capture a bunch of creepy crawlly things.

[Chainmail]

Fun story!

[RoadGumby]

Why? Seeing as how I keep snakes, I’ll answer the why.

1. Easy to keep. Feed once a week or so.
2. Don’t bark at night.
3. Don’t chew up shoes.
4. Don’t shed fur all over the house.
5. Vacation friendly. Make sure water is good and go.
6. Should be bitten, (yes, it happens) I get more blood and pain playing with my cats.

[Libloather]

I ordered an investigation into Hillary’s crimes and all I got was crickets...

[PghBaldy]

Couple more lines, and you have a good song.

[raybbr]

You could get all that from a rock.

[EinNYC]

Easy to see you're a cricket amateur here. Got a box of crickets? Dump them into a plastic garbage bag, preferably a clear recycling bag so you can see what is what, by partially opening the box the crickets came in, then thrusting the entire box, held by 1 hand, into the bag. Rap sharply on the box several times until all the crickets are in the bag. I would suggest emptying the crickets into a Kricket Keeper, which has 4 tubes resting in it. When you want to feed Holly, your beardie, you just lift one of the tubes up carefully, so you don't dislodge any of the crickets hiding there, and shake the distal end of the tube into Holly's tank. If you want to regulate the amount of crickets you give her more carefully, shake the tube into a plastic storage bag, count out the crickets, and dump the rest remaining in the tube back into the Kricket Keeper. Make sure you order some good cricket gut load food, so your crickets are optimally nutritious for the beardie, and supplement that with raw veggie leftovers such as carrot, both for vitamins and water source.

Here is a link to LLLReptile, which carries this product and has a handy how-to-use video: LLL

LIZARDS!!

[LeoTDB69]

“Our Ace Hardware has crickets.”

I guarantee our garage and storage shed has more. Tens of thousands of those nasty camel crickets. Maybe I need to get a pet lizard. :)