Well, geckos are very very pretty, and you already have one, but snakes are SO much easier to keep. i have a Kenyan Sand Boa that is only marginally more work than a vase. It’s certainly easier than a plant. Also he’s small (and always will be) and lives in a little sterlite box. Easiest pet EVER.
My son also had a bearded dragon that lives at his dad’s and they are amazing and awesome pets as well, but you have the cricket issue. The lizards themselves are quite easy to care for, but tending to the food supply (crickets) makes them so much more of a pain then a hamster or something. I fucking hate crickets.
Merneith, they are guaranteed to escape. These are not the singing ones. These are the “I will escape into your walls” type. No matter how careful you are, they always escape.
I have a pretty heavy cricket security system with multiple levels of redundancy. Famous last words, I know, but so far none of the crickets have even made it past the first level.
I once got 2 Geckos for roach control in an NYC apartment. Just let them loose. Rarely saw them after that but their dry droppings on the kitchen counter told me they were alive and well. When I moved a couple of years later we couldn’t catch the suckers but the new folks didn’t mind us leaving them there. OK, I’m a horrible person but these were working Geckos. No powdered crickets, misting, or heating pads for them.
Years later someone gave my son some lizard or other. Now HE ate crickets (also unpowdered - didn’t know about that). I would just throw a handful of crickets in the terrarium from time to time and replace them when the chirping stopped (about once a week). I loved the sound of the crickets at night. It was lovely. Unfortunately the lizard committed suicide(after about 2 years) by wedging himself between the hot rock and the glass wall while we were away for a long weekend. OK, I’m not a good lizard guardian. But I’m great with turtles. Can keep them alive and growing for many years.
Basically I’m a cat person. Cold blooded creatures leave me… well, you know.
We keep the crickets in the same little box we keep the gecko in for a travel cage. I just told my daughter that if the fire alarm goes off goes when I’m not home (assholes pull it for no reason), put that little bastard in the box with the crickets and let him feast, and DO NOT dump them out in the house or some shit, because I could totally see her doing that!
We had a bearded dragon for almost ten years. She was an adult when we got her, so I don’t really know how old she was when she died, but somewhere between 11 and 13, probably. There were many times when I thought it would have made more sense to just decide to keep crickets as pets and lose some of the complications, but she was a lot more personable than they were, certainly.
Congratulations on beginning your years of servitude!
I totally understand. When I was researching getting a bearded dragon people complained about the crickets, and I thought the same thing. “They’re just crickets! I like crickets!!”
But no.
A single cricket, hopping and singing, is a LOT different than a container with 1,000+ squirming mass of insects. Just the number alone is off-putting. Then there’s the smell. Oh my god. Crickets STINK. They smell like death and rot and Idon’tevenknowwhat. It’s awful. And it’s in your house.
I still like a single cricket. I still like listening to them sing at night. But a box full of stinky squirming crickets? GROSS.
Crickets are nasty. We have a bearded dragon, and, fortunately, in his advanced age (he’s 9 years old) he is much more interested in his salad than the nasty noisy crickets. We also hand-feed him mealworms (spoiled brat) which can live in a container in the refrigerator.
The thing about crickets is that if your lazy beast does not care to eat all that he’s been fed that day, you need to remove them from his cage or they will endeavor to pester your pet all evening. Why the lizard doesn’t just eat the annoyances is beyond me. No, they will pick at the skin on top of his head and he will just sit there.
What is wrong with cats? They make great pets. But I was outvoted.
Living in Hawaii, I have lots of geckos in the house. At night when I sit at my computer some of the geckos come and drink droplets of water off my iced glass of whatever I am drinking. If I have a Pepsi I use a cover because the geckos love Pepsi and I don’t want gecko poop in my glass. I love the noises they make. Plus I get to watch lots of gecko sex.