How to Keep a Clean Insect Habitat
Some people dread having to keep an insect colony of feeders around the house. For others, having a colony of creepy crawlies is almost like having another pet.
The key difference between loving and hating your feeder insect colony is your ability to keep it clean and fresh. This not only gets rid of the smell, but reduces the risk of your insects catching a colony-wide disease.
In this article, we’ll talk about one of the key aspects of feeder insect husbandry: how to maintain a clean living space for your feeders.
Picking the Right Feeder Insect
Almost all the details of this article are true regardless of what kind of feeder you have. But it’s worth stating that some feeders are more high-maintenance than others, and some require more cleaning than others.
Dubia Roaches
The easiest insects to care for, in our opinion, are dubia roaches. These little guys will eat just about anything and are happy with a few egg flats in a dark storage bin at room temperature. They don’t smell much, they can’t climb or fly, and they are almost certain to die quickly if they do get out of their enclosure.
Superworms
Slightly more complicated to keep are superworms, which need to be moved into different containers at different life stages. But superworms are still pretty easy to take care of and don’t produce a lot of smell.
Crickets
Crickets are harder to keep than superworms, primarily because of how much upkeep you need to do to keep disease away. Brown house crickets produce a ton of ammonia as part of their bodily functions. This increases the humidity and temperature in their enclosure, makes them smell, and can make disease spread quickly. The brown house cricket’s cousin, the banded cricket, typically does better in captivity and is less inclined to die off.
Hornworms and Silkworms
The trickiest feeders to keep are things like silkworms and hornworms. Keeping moths is a hobby of its own, and a very rewarding one, but it’s a process that involves a lot of steps and a few different enclosures. The good news is that moths don’t smell and are typically pretty easy to keep clean.
Black Soldier Flies
Black soldier flies are also more high-effort, but keeping black soldier flies is more of a lifestyle choice that’s totally worth the effort. Black soldier flies are amazing composters that produce fertilizer to level up your garden and make great feeders for reptiles, chickens, and other pets.
Substrate and Climate
With any feeder insect, two factors can make a huge difference on how clean or dirty your insect enclosure stays. First is the substrate, or what your feeders live on. In some cases, it’s also what your feeders eat.
This is especially important with crickets, which produce a lot of humidity and need something absorbent to line the bottom of their enclosure. We recommend doing a thin layer of vermiculite at the bottom of your crickets’ home before adding food substrate. For superworms and mealworms, wheat bran is a good food substrate that is nutritious and easy to clean.
The second thing that will help keep your insects clean is the climate in their enclosure. Controlling the climate mostly depends on what time of year it is. In the summer, you’re going to be focusing on keeping them cool and dry. In the winter, you’ll probably worry about keeping them warm (and probably also dry).
For keeping it cool and dry, the main thing to focus on is ventilation. The easiest way to get more airflow into your insects’ habitat is to modify the lid.
If you’re using a plastic storage container, you can cut the center out and glue in some fine mesh. This will prevent escape attempts while getting better air in there. Consider setting up your insects near an oscillating fan to get more air moving.
To keep the enclosure warm, you will mainly have to think about where you keep it. Usually the best place is a small closet in the center of the house, away from windows.
Finally, consider getting a small thermometer/hygrometer. There are plenty of these on the market that can stick to the walls of the enclosure. This will help you keep an eye on the temperature and humidity.
How to Clean your Insects’ Enclosure
But for insects like crickets, this isn’t going to be enough maintenance on its own. If you want to keep the smell down, and keep your insects healthy, you’re going to need to do some thorough cleaning.
Light Cleaning
In general, you should keep an eye on your insects’ substrate and egg flats. If they look clumpy, damp, or generally gross, toss them out and replace them. If you notice any dead bugs, definitely get them out of there as soon as possible. This is one of the ways disease can spread with insects like crickets.
Deep Cleaning
Every so often, you should also clean the enclosure to get rid of any frass and ammonia that might build up in there. This will also give you a chance to replace the substrate and give your feeders fresh food.
The easiest way to do this is to move your feeders from their normal habitat to another. Mimic your normal set up in the second container- if you use a thin layer of substrate put some down, and then transfer your feeders over.
Now that their normal home is empty, you can dump it out and give it a good cleaning. We recommend using bleach on plastic surfaces to kill disease and make sure your feeders stay healthy.
How often you do this depends on which feeders you have. Dubia roaches will probably need a deep cleaning every couple weeks to every month or so. Crickets, especially in the summer, will need a deep clean about every week. To make this easier, some pet owners will keep their crickets in a five-gallon bucket rather than a storage bin to make transferring them easier.