I picked up my B.Smithi sling about a week ago while picking up some crickets. I got some small ones for the sling at the same time. What I would like to know is how to keep it hydrated? I have seen people put that clear gel in spider tanks but am not 100% sure what it is or whether I should be using it.

Another thing is, catching those little crickets can be quite challenging and I'm sure I'm not the only one that might have flattened one or two of them in the process. Should I still feed it to my sling or do I feed it a live one?

Hey just wet one side of the substrate

When slings are still small and in a deli cup, as Dimitri said, just mist one side every week and the sling will drink from the drops if it's thirsty. Once it's bigger and you rehouse then you can use a waterbowl. Normally I use coke bottle caps for small slings and then move to bigger containers as the sling grows.

The cricket problem is simple to solve but may piss off your partner/spouse if you have one because you need to use a deepish clear glass bowl with a lid. Just open the cricket carton and while holding the bowl's lid take out the piece of egg carton, and shake it out into the bowl while holding the lid over the bowl because the small cricket's just jump about like crazy. Once in the bowl they will settle down and stop jumping. Then I use a tiny plastic cup (same size as the tomato sauce things at McD's) that you can buy in packs at any plastic store, to scoop up a cricket at a time.

No way that a guy's fat fingers can avoid squishing the little buggers if you try and grab them. I still laugh that as a newbie I was such a dumbass that I tried to grab the crickets by their antenna with my forceps What a mission!!!