What Do Crickets Eat?

What crickets eat in the wild

• Plants — leaves, grass, stems, flowers, seedlings, and young shoots.
• Seeds and grains.
• Fruit and vegetables, especially soft or fallen fruit.
• Decaying plant and animal matter, which makes them useful decomposers.
• Fungi and mould.
• Other insects — aphids, larvae, eggs, and smaller or weaker insects. Crickets will also eat dead insects, and in crowded conditions they turn cannibalistic, eating each other.

Do crickets eat grass? Yes. Grass, leaves, and tender young plants are a staple, and that's why crickets can damage lawns, gardens, and crop seedlings when populations get large.

What to feed pet or feeder crickets: If you're keeping crickets (usually to feed reptiles, amphibians, or birds), a good diet keeps them alive and makes them more nutritious:

• Commercial cricket food or chicken/poultry mash as the staple — this provides balanced protein and grain.
• Fresh vegetables — carrot, sweet potato, squash, dark leafy greens, potato slices.
• Fruit in moderation — apple, orange slices, melon.
• Oats, cornmeal, wheat bran, or dry cereal.
• A water source that won't drown them — water gel crystals, a damp sponge, or moisture-rich vegetables rather than an open dish.

Gut-loading (important if they're feeder insects): Feeding crickets a nutrient-rich diet for 24–48 hours before offering them to your pet loads their gut with vitamins and calcium, passing that nutrition on. Calcium-rich greens or a commercial gut-load formula are used for this.

What to avoid feeding them: citrus in large amounts, anything mouldy, salty or heavily processed human foods, and pesticide-treated produce. Overcrowding plus not enough food is the main cause of cannibalism, so keep them well fed and give them cardboard egg-carton hiding places.

A note on baby crickets (pinheads): they eat the same foods, just finely ground — powdered cricket food or crushed oats works best.

Nearby questions in this topic include What Do Grasshoppers Eat? and What Do Mice Eat?.

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