Bad feeders? Lost a LOT of stock after feeding

[Sarra]

My sig is out of date, unfortunatley it's got animals listed in it that aren't alive anymore. Specifically, I purchased some crickets to feed my animals a while back, and the next day, ALL of my frogs were dead or dieing, and all of my small geckos (lucky for me I didn't feed my crested or Lybian Dwarf Sand Gecko) were dead as well. The Oceanica that I'm watching for a friend got very sick, though it recovered, which amazes me to this day.

Any suggestions on actions to take when this happens? It's from a 'not so large' chain petstore, and I can't just 'not go there' because it's the ONLY place local that has pinheads, which I HAVE to feed my Dwarf gecko, she is too small to eat anything else except fruit flies, and she just plain won't eat them.

Why did this happen? The crickets themselves were okay, and many of them lived after the frogs/geckos died.

What can I do to prevent it from happening again?

Before anyone suggests that I fed too large crickets, that's kind of impossible. My darts were fed pinheads, and they were pinheads. It wasn't just one size of cricket that made my animals sick or killed them, it was pinheads, small, and large.

I can't breed my own crickets (or any other feeders), I don't have the space, and my 'landlord' has vetoed that vehemantly.

[belle]

Were they dusted with anything? Could the container they were in have been contaminated with anything such as a household cleaner or some type of soap?

You could also order your crickets online. There are several places that will ship all sizes and quantities of crickets to your door.

[Sarra]

I used different supplaments for different kinds of crickets for different frogs and geckos. =\ One tank didn't recieve any dusting either.

And no, they went straight from the bag that the petstore put them in to the tank.

I've thought about ordering online, but the pinheads don't usually survive long, and it would be a little difficult ordering large numbers of them when my littlest gecko only eats a few a month, most of them would get wasted.

[Styx]

Perhaps the food at the store was molded or otherwise contaminated and thus the toxic food was in the guts of the crickets? That's all I can think of, but I've never had anything like that happen. I always feed my crix my own food before my geckos get them because I'm paranoid like that.

[firecrested]

If you only need a few a month you could breed them. Your landlord would never know. A dozen adults would be more than enough for as few as you need and only takes about half a day to get them to lay eggs. When you buy the big ones you can set up a small container with something moist like eco earth or peat moss and keep the crickets in for 12 hours then take it up, put the top on it with air holes, keep at room temp and 2 weeks later, baby crickets.

[Lauren and Hunter]

Wow. This makes me want to not feed crickets to my cresties ever again. That's terrifying, and I'm sorry it happened to you.

[Saille]

That sounds terrible. I always gutload my crickets for at least 3 hours before feeding, and they only get organic fruit and veg for gutloading.
Can I suggest maybe breeding blatta Lateralis (Turkistan roaches) they are about the size of crickets, (from nymphs to adults) don't make noise, can't climb slick surfaces, don't smell like ass the way crickets do, and have better meat to shell ratios. Your landlord would never know, I keep mine in the pantry in a sealed tall sterilite waste-bin. The nymphs are so teeny, they're about the size of Pinhead crix, and the adults are about the size of large crickets, only a little fatter in the body.
My Fire skink loves them and will not touch crickets, he actually spits crickets out and wipes his mouth, Lol.

If this is completely out of the question for you, perhaps ordering from Sunshine Mealworms would be an option, I have never had an issue with their crickets, and because they're fairly close to us, (on the west coast) cricket mortality rate is low in the shipping.

Just make sure to gutload any more crickets you have with organic foods, hopefully your sad situation was jut a fluke and won't happen again. Sorry that happened to you.