Why I hate crickets (and love Cresties)

I've kept herps almost my entire life. I've seen a lot of things change over
time but one thing has stayed the same since the beginning: keeping lizards is
as much about caring for the lizard as it is about caring for crickets.

While you can buy crickets at just about any pet store, when bought in small
quantities, they're very expensive. Buying in bulk means that you have to get
serious about caring for them which means cleaning their enclosure every few
days, providing high quality food (and they eat like crazy!), changing their
water daily as they soil it almost instantly.

No matter how much you clean them, a cricket container with 500 crickets will
start to smell really bad. It can stink up an entire room.

For a single anole or leopard gecko, you can get away with buying a few dozen
crickets a week. You still need to gut load them. Many people fail to do this
and it will come back to haunt you. For a larger number of lizards or a large
lizard (like an adult bearded dragon), you can easily go through 500 crickets
in a couple weeks. With my collection of herps, when everything is fully active
in the spring, summer, and fall, I go through 1000 crickets every two weeks.

For a dedicated hobbyist, it's well worth it.

Enter crested geckos.

Not only do these guys have more personality than many other types of lizards,
they have one characteristic that makes them stand out above all other common
herps. They not only do well, but *thrive* on a prepared diet. What I find
so wonderful about this is that I can focus my time on caring for geckos instead
of crickets or meal worms. It really has made a big difference for me in how
I look to the hobby.