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Top Hat Cricket Farm 1 (800) 638-2555 |
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Since our last update we have had a few new developments that we would like to tell you about. I’m sure you’re aware of the trouble in the cricket industry. Also at this time it is public knowledge that Top Hat has fallen victim to what we believe is the cricket paralysis virus (CPV). We continue to clean our facility top to bottom and sterilize every surface, several different ways. We believe that our methods have weakened the virus substantially but still not enough to warrant a stable environment for production. Most recently, Top Hat has made the decision to remove all of the crickets that we were observing for experimentation from the growing facility and begin a period of idle time. We believe this to be necessary step in our process both to help us continue to clean and to remove anything that may be living in our facility and could potentially re-infect a new stock of crickets upon a potential restart. Our plan at this point is to allow our facility to sit empty until the springtime, giving us the time we need to re-invent the way we operate so that we may provide everyone with clean and healthy crickets when we return to normal production. We hope that all of our customers will make an effort to clean any cricket operation they have as well to help in stopping the spread of this virus. We strongly recommend that customers clean all of their cages, watering devices packing/counting instruments… anything in contact with crickets. We need your help to stop the spread of the cricket virus. Any cleaning will aid the cricket industry in returning stronger and healthier. Our recommendation for cleaning is that you first scrub all equipment with a cleaner such as simple green to loosen all dirt and other particles. After a good rinse to insure all loosened dirt is gone a 10-minuet soak in bleach water is necessary to kill off any life forms that could be hiding. Bleach should be mixed around a ˝ cup to one gallon of water.
As always I need to reassure you that we are not going to give up, we strongly believe that we are on the path to success and we continue to do everything we can to get back up and running as quickly as possible. We appreciate everyone’s support and concern through this challenge and look forward to supplying our customers with the clean and healthy crickets that you are used to seeing from Top Hat very soon. If you hadn’t already heard, there was an article published in our local newspaper that has more information about the cricket virus and what it’s done to the industry, check it out at mlive.com If you have individual concerns you can still reach us in our office or via e-mail at bob@tophatcrickets.com Please continue to monitor our progress from our website www.tophatcrickets.com Thanks again for your concern,
Dave Eldred President/CEO Top Hat Cricket Farm INC. 1919 Forest Dr. Portage, MI 49002 |
Prices subject to change
without prior notice.
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