How To Catch Uneaten Crickets?

After feeding crickets to your pet lizards, it becomes essential to withdraw the uneaten crickets, but unfortunately, the problem occurs when you are trying to withdraw them.

You cannot use your hand because the lizard might try to attack your hand; you cannot use tweezer because crickets are small and difficult to catch. They will move and hide as soon as you try to catch them. With all these problems, how do you catch them after your lizard is done eating?

So, how to catch uneaten crickets? A low powered handheld vacuum cleaner is the best way to catch uneaten cricket. A low powered handheld vacuum cleaner is reasonably priced and can easily catch a cricket. Just take the vacuum cleaner near crickets, and it will suck them in without killing them. After that, you can keep them elsewhere.

Why Uneaten Crickets Are Difficult To Catch

Crickets are small, and they are fast, they can jump around and fly relatively well. Because of these traits, it becomes challenging to catch crickets by using almost any method. Tweezer, hand nothing seems to work. Even though they have these qualities, they are quite delicate, so catching them by hand or using tweezer can kill them.

If there were no lizards inside the cage things could have been a lot easier. You could have caught them just by using your hand since you could have handled them much more gently, but since the lizard lives inside the cage, it becomes much more challenging because the lizard can attack your hand and interfere when trying to catch the crickets.

So I won’t recommend you to use your hand while catching the uneaten crickets. All these factors contribute to the difficulty of catching uneaten crickets.

How To Properly Use Handheld Vacuum Cleaner to Catch Cricket?

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You can get the handheld vacuum cleaner on Amazon. These are low powered vacuum cleaner so it won’t kill crickets. Just take the vacuum near the crickets, and your work will be done.

The nozzle of these handheld vacuum cleaner is slim, and that’s why it won’t suck your lizard inside unless your lizard is too small but still make sure you are not taking the handheld vacuum cleaner near your lizard.

How To Get Crickets Out From Hiding

It can get tough to use any remedies if the uneaten crickets start hiding. So you have to get them out no matter what. Here are a few easy ways that you can use to get them out of hiding.

1. Use Vacuum: Use a low powered vacuum to draw them out. Just take the vacuum near the crickets, and they will get sucked in. You might need to make some effort to get the vacuum near the crickets if they are hiding, but that’s all you need to do. Once you take the vacuum close enough, the vacuum will suck the crickets, and your work will be done.
2. Use Bait: You can use bait to lure the crickets out from their hiding. After you place the bait, make sure to keep some distance and get out of their sight. Once they take the bait, you can use the handheld vacuum to capture them. 
3. Get Out Of Their Sight And Wait: The easiest way to get them out of their hiding is to get out of their sight and then wait. If you keep your distance from the crickets for quite some time. Those crickets will come out of hiding and will start roaming again. This is the ideal solution if you have adequate time in your hand. After they come out, you can use the vacuum to capture them.

Don’t Use High Powered Vacuum Cleaner Over Crickets

People find vacuum cleaner convenient for catching uneaten crickets because the vacuum cleaner’s suction power is more than enough to capture them. The vacuum cleaner comes with a nozzle, and you can move it freely within the lizard cage, but the problem is the uneaten crickets can die when you use a high powered vacuum cleaner. 

The crickets will be taken to the storage bag where all the dirt is stored, and the crickets can suffocate and die there. Suppose you want to get rid of the uneaten crickets. In that case, you can surely use the high powered vacuum cleaner to get rid of them, but if you want to keep those uneaten crickets alive, then don’t directly use the high powered vacuum cleaner over them. 

However, if you have a high powered vacuum cleaner in your house, then you can put a cloth on the vacuum cleaner nozzle and use it. That will catch the cricket and will not kill them.

Secondly, if your lizard is small, then the high powered vacuum cleaner can also suck your lizard in, and in that case, your lizard can also die, which is, of course, you won’t like. So directly using the high powered vacuum cleaner over the uneaten crickets is useless and risky. It will not only suck the crickets but everything around it, which is not good.

The excess suction power will suck excess things that can harm the crickets, and some of them even have various mechanism that can kill the crickets while they are going through the process of getting sucked in. A low powered vacuum cleaner has a much simpler mechanism so it won’t kill them when they are getting sucked in, and it is also much less expensive.

Feed Individual Crickets At A Time

This is one of the best options to do. If you have enough time, you can individually feed crickets to your lizard. In that way, you don’t have to catch uneaten crickets. Some people find it convenient to release all the crickets at once so that the lizard can eat its fill, but the drawback is that the lizard will not eat them all and catching uneaten crickets can become hectic and time-consuming.

So if you feed individual crickets to your lizards, it will save you a lot of time and remove the headache of catching uneaten crickets. In the beginning, it may feel like the feeding is taking too long; however, the truth is that it will take less time compared to catching uneaten crickets (if you are not habituated in catching uneaten crickets).

Take a tweezer and feed individual crickets to the lizard. I don’t recommend using your hand to feed your lizard because your pet lizard can sometimes get aggressive while eating and bite you even if you feed the lizard by your hand daily.

Using a tweezer is a safe option, and you will be able to feed your lizard without worries. Sometimes the lizard can try to bite the tweezer but pull it out from its mouth and start feeding again. In time your lizard will learn not to bite the tweezer.

Freeze The Crickets

I highly recommend buying the low powered handheld vacuum cleaner to catch the uneaten crickets, but if you don’t have those right now, you can freeze the crickets inside the refrigerator and then feed them to the lizard. Freezing them inside the fridge will slow them down, and once your lizard is done feeding, you’ll be able to catch them using a tweezer or by hand (wearing thick gloves).

Freezing them at the deep freezer for 5-7 minutes will be more than enough to slow them down. Don’t freeze them for too long, or they will die inside your freezer. This is just an additional option for catching uneaten crickets. Use this option if you don’t have a vacuum cleaner to catch uneaten crickets.

Is It Okay To Leave Uneaten Crickets In Lizard Cage?

It’s difficult to catch uneaten crickets, but you cannot leave them inside the cage. The lizard will eat its fill, and then the lizard will not eat. So in most cases, lots of crickets will remain uneaten. So you have to bring them out, or else the crickets will start attacking the lizard. Crickets are omnivorous, and when they feel hungry, they will attack the lizard.

The lizard will feel discomfort if the cricket starts biting them, so it’s better to put them out immediately after the lizard is done eating. Leaving them overnight can have even worse effects as these crickets will get more hungry and will consistently attack the lizard and since the lizard will not be able to get out of the cage, it will not be able to get rid of the crickets and will suffer.