By Collette on 08-Apr-10 16:37

John: Hey Collette, want to go shopping?

Collette: Uh, no. I have a meeting at 2.

J: Oh, darn. We're so busy we can't get some stuff we need.

C: Oh, well I can go after my meeting! What do you need?

J: Okay! Sounds great! We need bat food.

It wasn't until after I'd agreed that I found out I was also supposed to go buy crickets! And so my adventure in buying food for the animals began.

Sobeys was pretty straightforward. I had a lovely conversation from the woman at customer service. I guess the Science Centre is there often -- her remark was, "Oh, food for the bats I am guessing?" Ha, yes! I bought apples, grapes and bananas for them. It's easy to see why they are called fruit bats! I also bought lettuce and carrots. I'm not sure who eats the carrots, but I know the bearded dragon eats the lettuce. I'd ask Sheila, our Environmental Programs Coordinator, but she's been so busy with Day Camps all day.

Sobeys, easy:

A little less straightforward was the crickets. I went to Petland. I have a dog so I've been there lots, but apparently I have never needed to visit the cricket section before. They have an entire section for worms and crickets! It makes sense, it's just not something I'd ever thought about.

I found tubs of mealworms:

There were also similar tubs of waxworms, but I didn't take a photo. I did, however, take a photo of these:

Superworms! They were huge! I don't know exactly what they are, but they looked like gigantic mealworms:

I am not very squeamish, but I'm not gonna lie: an entire wall unit of containers full of wriggling worms is kind of creepy! My ankles were itchy the whole time I was there. I am not actually exaggerating either, ha.

This is the part that I found most hilarious, though. I was asked to buy 200 crickets, or 2 containers of 100. Ya, sure, I can do that. Except that there are different kinds of crickets! You could get them at 2 weeks old. 3 weeks, or 4 weeks. Ha! I had no idea of the subtleties of choosing the right cricket. Now, I'm animal crazy so I've seen the crickets we usually have around here. I am always in the Critter Cave or in Demo Village asking questions about the animals. The 4 week crickets looked similar to what we have. But, I didn't really want to get the wrong ones, so I asked. They knew about the Science Centre too, but the girl wasn't sure what we usually get. The guy asked me what I'm feeding.

"Um, the tarantula and the bearded dragon for sure, but I don't know what else we have that eats them." He figured the 4 week ones would be fine then.

So, that's what I got:

The blue stuff in there is water gel, for them to drink. I've seen it around here. Actually, I don't have a photo yet but I'll post one soon -- we are breeding our own crickets! I was asking Sheila, our Environmental Coordinator, about them the other day. Once I get a photo I'll do a post about that. The ones that hatched just recently are too young to use, she told me before my trip.

All in all, it was a pretty easy trip. My absolute favourite part, though? Hearing the crickets chirp chirp chirp away while I was at a stop light and the car was quiet. Ha!

Stay curious,
Collette

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