As you may already know, we offer our Banded Crickets in all sizes and ship them year-round. This can be quite a tricky task, especially since we are located in Michigan. Those of us in temperate regions of the US sometimes experience severely cold temperatures in winter and extremely hot temperatures in summer.

On top of all that, we offer a generous Live Arrival Guarantee year-round with just a few stipulations...

As the temperatures of the seasons change, so does the way we package our crickets and other live items.

The way we package your live items depends upon a few factors, including the overnight low temperature of their destination. The destination weather forecast is actually printed right on the order sheet itself for easy reference when our shippers determine which precautions to take.

We pack your feeders based on the overnight low in your area, specifically for the day of delivery. The ranges and corresponding packing materials are as follows:

• 40-60° F: box is used with heat pack
• 30-39° F: box is used with both heat pack and foam
• 20-29° F: box, foam, heat pack and temperature controlled gel is used
• below 20° F: same as above, but our Live Arrival Guarantee is void unless FedEx Priority Overnight shipping is chosen at checkout

These guidelines were put into place after 378 different experiments!

Winter Packaging

As mentioned above, when necessary, we add our cricket boxes to another box that is completely lined with foam top, bottom, and sides. Even when heat packs are used, your crickets may still arrive slightly cold and dormant - this is actually desired! The less active the crickets are, the less they need to breath, which allows for us to keep them enclosed in this foam-lined box. They should bounce right back to normal after they warm up.

Summer Packaging

In higher heat, crickets breathe much more rapidly and therefore need more ventilation. As you can see, our cricket boxes already contain the the vented cap to help with this. We simply ship these boxes as-is, so you won't want to open this box until you are ready to dump the crickets into their enclosures.

We have current experiments underway to test out different methods for extreme summer temperatures, particularly in the 85-100° F range. This includes using cooling gel packs, etc. If successful, we'll be able to extend our Live Arrival Guarantee! Currently, destination temperature highs 85° F or above are not covered.

We also ship some of our smaller sized crickets in tubes. These do not have built-in vents, however, as it's only the larger adult crickets that need more ventilation. If these are the only item on the order, we will tape the ends shut and put the shipping label directly on the tube itself to send as-is. Again, the crickets are directly inside, so be sure to open it inside their enclosure.

Our smaller quantities of crickets come in vented containers like these that are always sealed and put into a box before shipping.

As always, if you ever have any issues with your order, please contact our customer service via [email protected] with pictures of your invoice/packing slip and insects so we can help you out!