crickets

Question
Hi, i just had a few questions reguarding crickets.  I have crickets in a large tote (18gal?)  holding around 50+ crickets at one time.  i was just wondering is there anyway to tell if your crickets are healthy?  Disease free.  I change there food every now and then.  When vegatables are fully dried out and eaten, bread is really hard.  and clean there cage when i can.  They do seem to be very jumpy when i put them in w/ my geckos, and actually get away from them pretty fast.  thanks for your help.

Answer
Hello Dustin, you can usually tell by the death rate. If you are getting alot of dead crickets for no apparent reason then they are most likely diseased and the rest should be discarded. When you buy them from the store ask if you can see the containers the crickets are in. There should be little to no dead crickets. If there are then try the next pet store. Breeding your own is easy as well and probably the best way to get out disease. Cleaning is always helpful as well. Here are some links with information on Cricket breeding on just information on crickets.
Good luck

http://www.anapsid.org/crickets.html

http://skylab.org/~chugga/cricket/

There are also sites such as this one below that gaurantees a non diseased cricket

http://www.premiumcrickets.com/
Which is cheaper then most pet stores.

I hope this was of some help. Good luck