Our Cricket Habitat

While playing outside early this afternoon, we noticed that there were a bunch of crickets that were jumping around outside.  The boys started trying to catch them. So instead of them trying to find something to put them in to catch more, there they were, shoveling them off into my hands.  Now, I am okay with rolie polies, butterflies, slow moving bugs {does not include spiders} but I do not care for ones that jump. I had Lucas stuffing them in my pockets of my pants and Austin was mid throw when I suggested in a not so pleasant tone that we find out how to make a home for the crickets and put them in there.  I found a lot of information here on how to build a habitat for them.  

1. step one: choose a container with holes in the lid
We chose to use an actual habitat box {although it might be too small...the boys think they are going to get a good amount of crickets in this tiny habitat}. We have {had} a Triop Kit that we have been saving for a while to put together with them, but we always just seem to forget. Not to mention, you need a specific kind of water {always the kind I don't seem to remember at the store}. I finally bought the right type of water at the store and brought it out to do it....and our cats ate all the triop eggs right out of the packages. No lie. I am glad my cats don't drink {insert specific kind of water here}...or there may be a ton of tiny triop eggs in places you wouldn't want triops. We now have a Cricket Habitat. Yeah, free entertainment.

2. fill 1/4 of the way up with sand 
We used sand right out of our sand pit in the backyard.  We did actually sift the sand... which the boys thought was pretty awesome. Go figure. :)

3. use 2 small open containers for a food and water dish 
We ended up using water bottle lids.  We placed some fish food pellets in one bowl and a moistened cotton ball in the other.

4. Shelter or somewhere to hide/perch
We cut egg carton shells out and set them upside down in the habitat. I may need to add more now that we actually have crickets :) We added broken sticks and little rocks. They both added flowers from the yard to the habitat "To give the crickets a tasty treat after dinner".

5. add crickets
This part took us THREE tries! Haha, those suckers are fast.  We now have two adult crickets and one young cricket in our habitat.  {Lots of thanks to the hubby for catching them for us}

So there it is! Our Cricket Habitat. I just love how it turned out and the boys were pretty excited when we finally got the crickets in the habitat. Now the hard part, keeping the crickets out of the jaws of our two fat cats.

Enjoy!