Mole crickets

[Suze]

I keep seeing the occasional post about these eeeevil mole crickets, and thought I'd post about it here in Pest/Disease, so as to not derail other threads.

I have a few here and there, but they didn't wreck too much havoc this year. I will say I was quite surprised to see the size of the bites they can take out of a tomato!

Case in point -- one late afternoon, I picked three or four baskets of tomatoes and left them on the back porch a couple of hours for whatever reason. An hour or two later, I come back to find a mole cricket in one of the baskets. It had taken several large bites out of many of the fruits, and was on a Vorlon fruit when I spotted it, in the process of gnawing a quarter sized hole.

I don't think this is a major problem for me, although (other than that basket) I did see some occasional damage to a few fruits still on the vine.

What are folks that have mole crickets doing to manage them?

[tessa]

you should see the havoc they caused when they got into my worm farm!!!! bred like crazy and ate the worms.

what do i do?
hmm. would it interest you that mole crickets are now my chicken's favourite food?

[Grub]

Great trout bait as well

[Suze]

Originally Posted by tessa

hmm. would it interest you that mole crickets are now my chicken's favourite food?

I would love to have me some chickens. Maybe one of these days...

Originally Posted by Grub

Great trout bait as well

I'll keep that in mind as the both the hubby and I like to fish, but haven't done so in quite some time.

One thing they do is sometimes crawl the walls of my back porch at night, along with the geckos. I've watched a few times to see who is the predator, and who is the prey. I've noticed a few times that I'll get three or more geckos sort of triangulating in on one, but haven't seen any "kills" either way so far. LOL. So maybe they co-exist, and anyway, I think geckos usually go for the smaller insects -- what they can catch with their tongues.

Found this link full of helpful information on Mole Crickets. Sounds like beneficial nematodes might be an option for some, but like I said before, the damage they cause me is minor, so I probably won't bother.

http://molecrickets.ifas.ufl.edu/mcri0002.htm

[Worth1]

Suze are these the same little devils that hang out around the outside lights by the thousands sometimes?

They also get in the house and drive me nuts with their chirping sometimes.
I have to hunt the little devils down or I cant get any sleep.

Is this the same one?

Worth

[tessa]

worth...when i first set up my container garden my friends used to come over at night and marvel that i had even attracted frogs into my garden.
for years now, we thought it was frogs chirping!!!!
so if you're hearing a chirping that sounds an awful lot like 'ribbit'...then yeah...them's molecrickets!!!

and i don't know about baiting a hook with them.
they bite!!!

[Suze]

Originally Posted by Worth1

Suze are these the same little devils that hang out around the outside lights by the thousands sometimes?

They also get in the house and drive me nuts with their chirping sometimes.
I have to hunt the little devils down or I cant get any sleep.

Is this the same one?

Yes, I figure this might be the same one, since we live in the same area. They occasionally do the same thing to me with the outside lights -- very annoying when I'm trying to relax on the back porch.

[jermen]

i can't tell you how many crickets i have killed,...swept out...and allowed my dog to eat ....

( her name is pickles, a small boston terrier)....she is a great bug eater...it's gross, i know ...but, she eats bugs like popcorn. june bugs, crickets... thank goodness she does not eat the frogs...we have a lot of frogs here...

my brother says "her eyes are where her frontal lobe should be"
LOL
i would be very happy to know anything i could do to reduce the cricket population here, at our new house....so piclkles won't have to work so hard..LOL

jeri

[Worth1]

While I was at work in Alaska I was talking to my wife and the guys heard them chirping over the phone.

They wanted to know what the noise was over the phone and I told them, BUGS!!!!!!

It was really loud, you could hear them 20 feet away from the receiver.
They wanted to know if I lived in a jungle.
Worth

[Rena]

I confess! I have a container of mole crickets in the house!! I have had them for several weeks. I have frogs in the living room in an aquarium and we feed the frogs the crickets..... I feed the crickets collards to keep them healthy for the frogs. Sick- I know but I love frogs and they were almost dead when we rescued them out of the pool, then they lived in my fountain. I moved them in the house over Thanksgiving. I really want them to go back to living outside come Spring, but am unsure if they can?? We have 2 frogs we call them La Frog and Le Frog (with a French accent) I actually buy the crickets at the Marina where the fishermen buy them.

[tessa]

so this begs the question....how big are your crickets, rena?
because the ones here would eat a frog, i'm sure.

[Worth1]

Rena

What kind of frogs are they?

One of the reasons I didn't go any farther with the terracing was that the tall blood weeds growing in the back this year was just covered in tree frogs.

I didn't want to disturb their home.

Then there was all of the baby toads in the yard, it took me forever to cut the lawn because I had to go real slow so they could get out of the way.
Sometimes I would get off and move them to a safe spot.

It was a big year for frogs and toads this year and I know it is natural for some years to be this way.



I didn't want to disturb the natural balance of things.

I love all creatures.

Worth

[Rena]

Ok what I have is Not a mole cricket! well it is not the big daddy I just googled I did see a species called a southern mole cricket that looked smaller.
Those bad boys are ugly Tessa. I am so doubting I could touch one The ones I have are big eaters, they eat their friends too
Edited to add: I am not sure what kind of frogs (we think bull frog) There are so many frogs types. La frog (he big one) ate our beta fish. They are not shy when I feed them they snap them right up. La Frog spends a good bit of time looking at the mirror in the back of the tank and croaking LOL!

[tessa]

yeah...it didn't sound right to me, rena. you see...mole crickets BITE!...and frogs just kinda lick, gum and gulp. it seemed a no-contest situation. the mole crickets would win the battle!