re: crickets
my 8 week old chicks break apart larger beetles and they tore apart a lizard so fast it was hard to see! They love grubs (~5wk on), but a neighbor tried to gift them some when they were ~1-2 weeks old and they played with them, but didn't actually eat them. So, I guess it...
I saw a great solution one time that I'll try to describe: the premise is to build a box with a hardware cloth top that they can walk on and eat the tops of the grasses, but not scratch up the plant...I saw it as a frame on the ground with cross bracing so the cloth will support their weight...