Cricket breeding KIT...or home-made

[cooper01]

I was able to find a small cricket breeding kit online and was wondering how it might compare to doing it myself. I have a Gekko gecko, and Paroedura pictus. I'm just getting into the gecko thing but already see that i will have issues with the cost of crickets. I would love to start breeding them if it means that i will save some money. I'm a molecular biologists so the difficulty is not an issue. I was really just wondering if a kit or personal set up was the way to go. Thanks for the help:lol:

 

[lemonjello]

Have you tried mealworms? They are great. You can refrigerate then until you use them, they don't smell, they don't make noise,.......

 

[mh728]

Yeah mealworms are conveniant, unless of course your animals refuse to eat them like mine. As far as cricket breeding goes your probably better off researching how to keep and breed them rather than waste money on a so called 'kit'.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Roaches are far superior to either crickets or mealworms. And easy to breed too. I'd go the roach route if I were you.

 

[audio]

home made isn't hard

i would do roaches if i wasn't afraid of them, not to mention they adapt easily and if they escape i would assume that'd create a problem

just get a big plastic bin, cut a hole or 2 in the top and add screening, heat it if you live somewhere cold, put soil or something to lay eggs in as the substrate, crap to hide in (egg cartons), food and water, they do the rest.

as for really good tips, i don't have any, i'm new to this as well. i have a bunch in a 10 gallon with some soil for substrate, water pillows (if you've seen those), dish full of cricket feed, egg carton, and occasionally i mist it. i'll probably start heating it but i don't have an extra dome lamp right now or an extension cord to my closet. (that's the only place they shut up)

 

[moswen]

understandable on the being scared of roaches .....I keep crickets in shed out back very similar to what you are suggesting and they do what they gotta do....I however live in florida so I have to keep a fan or they cook.

 

[tuppence03]

have you thought of a cricket keeper? they are great the crickets live in the tubes you just tip a bit of of calcium in a tube give it shake and tip out to gut load your crickets feed them cucumber and grated carrot and and if yo are lucky they can breed in these conditions cutting your costs down in the future:

 

[mikey]

have you thought of a cricket keeper?

Back when I fed crickets to my geckos I used to keep large/medium crickets in a cricket keeper and to this day I still cannot figure out how they managed to escape. Every day there would be noticeably less crickets and I would find them all over my house. I'm not saying that cricket keepers are bad to use, I just know I would never risk it again - I don't know how they do it sometimes but crickets are great escape artists.

 

[mh728]

Back when I fed crickets to my geckos I used to keep large/medium crickets in a cricket keeper and to this day I still cannot figure out how they managed to escape. Every day there would be noticeably less crickets and I would find them all over my house. I'm not saying that cricket keepers are bad to use, I just know I would never risk it again - I don't know how they do it sometimes but crickets are great escape artists.

Same here, all it takes is a few hops and they can get a grip and escape through the ventilation. I tried putting a piece of screen under the lid and they chewed right through it. Then I tried a piece of aluminum screen and they can't get through that. This was way back when I got my first crested, then I realized that a pathetic little KK wasn't going to be enough and I started using an aquarium with a steel screen lid.

Bottom line, Kricket/Kritter Keepers aren't worth the money. You're better off with a cheaper plastic bin. Now I'm not sure why I went and typed all this seeing how old this thread is and considering the fact that I'm pretty sure the OP went and started a roach colony but whatever.

 

[cliff_f]

Cricket breeding/keeping kits are easy to build. If you use the metal screen they can not chew threw the screen and get out. I wont keep roaches just because I dont like them and I DO NOT recomend meal worms as a primairy diet.

Here are a few pictures of how I have my crickets setup. I dont have any problems with them escaping (except when i drop some). I usually have 3-4k crickets at any given time and I dont have any problems with them being all over the house.

 

[Turtlestork]

If your going to spend the money to breed, get some roaches. They smell a lot less when they breed and from what I've heard do it faster and are more nutritious. I would breed them but I'm still under my mother's thumb and if one escaped she'd flip.

For my crickets (I assume this would work for roaches, too), I have an old plastic drink cooler. They have very, very slick sides, so nothing can climb them. I tried using the opaque storage bins like above, but the crickets climbed it and escaped through the openings. I am thinking about starting to breed silkworms as a supplement/back up to my crickets I order every few weeks (you can get a thousand for 20 dollars shipped at crix-n-wiggles.com Which has some really healthy crix) but that isn't anytime soon. I think I will first get a mulberry plant established in my backyard or something so I don't have to be ordering the pre-made food.



TS

 

[cliff_f]

If your going to spend the money to breed, get some roaches. They smell a lot less when they breed and from what I've heard do it faster and are more nutritious. I would breed them but I'm still under my mother's thumb and if one escaped she'd flip.

For my crickets (I assume this would work for roaches, too), I have an old plastic drink cooler. They have very, very slick sides, so nothing can climb them. I tried using the opaque storage bins like above, but the crickets climbed it and escaped through the openings. I am thinking about starting to breed silkworms as a supplement/back up to my crickets I order every few weeks (you can get a thousand for 20 dollars shipped at crix-n-wiggles.com Which has some really healthy crix) but that isn't anytime soon. I think I will first get a mulberry plant established in my backyard or something so I don't have to be ordering the pre-made food.



TS

LOL, you are telling him he should get roaches and breed them but yet you never have had any or bred any. I have had roaches I thought they were a pain in the A*$! I would never use roaches again. I really dont see what the big deal is about them. Crickets are so much easier to deal with IMO and this is coming from someone who has kept both roaches and crickets.

 

[cooper01]

OK OK OK OK Settle Down Guys!!

To be honest, i posted this a few months ago and have since started a dubia colony. Its going ok, not growing like was promised, but doing good. I do however think that there is no sub for the god old cricket. I was wondering if anyone of you guys bread meal worms? I would love some opinions regarding that.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Lateralis beat crickets hands down any time. I used crickets for 15+ years and hated every minute of it. Lateralis are very similar to crickets in size, breed as fast if not faster, don't smell (assuming that you actually bother to clean your enclosures), don't make any noise, live WAY longer so you don't end up with tons of dead bugs in the bottom of the enclosure, and have a much high meat to shell ratio. Anyone not having these results is simply not doing it right or perhaps has poor quality stock.

Dubia are much slower to breed. But once they're established, they do quite well. They make for a nice larger sized feeder for bigger geckos and lizards (my U. Lineatus and tegus love them). I breed both dubia and lateralis and would never ever go back to crickets. Roaches are also a more natural diet for most herps. They live in almost every part of the world. They're mother natures feeders.

Mealworms are easy to breed also. And I do keep them around too just to add variety to my animal's diets. However, they're not very nutrious overall and their shells can cause impaction. I'd never use them as a single diet for any of my herps. But again, they are nice to have kicking around for variety.

@ Richard - if your Dubia colony isn't growing fast enough, re-check your temps and humidity as well as what you're feeding them. The cooler they are, the slower they reproduce. Get some flexwatt under them on a thermostat/rheostat and they'll take right off.

 

[tuppence03]

here in the UK I have never heard of anybody feeding roaches to anything never mind breeding them, I think I will stick stick with crix and worms @ locusts for my dragon and stick to crix and worms for my geckos when I get them, I know I can keep and breed them I have done in the past

 

[cliff_f]

My question with people that breed roaches. How do you seperate the different sizes? Without spending hours on end chassing roaches around trying to get the sizes seperated, or turning a 30 min feeding into a 3 hour feeding trying to chase the sizes down you need in one big tub as you feed.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

My question with people that breed roaches. How do you seperate the different sizes? Without spending hours on end chassing roaches around trying to get the sizes seperated, or turning a 30 min feeding into a 3 hour feeding trying to chase the sizes down you need in one big tub as you feed.

Im not sure how anyone else does it. But I made a set of "strainers". Cups with different sized holes in the bottoms.

 

[Dyesub Dave]

Lateralis beat crickets hands down any time. I used crickets for 15+ years and hated every minute of it. Lateralis are very similar to crickets in size, breed as fast if not faster, don't smell (assuming that you actually bother to clean your enclosures), don't make any noise, live WAY longer so you don't end up with tons of dead bugs in the bottom of the enclosure, and have a much high meat to shell ratio. Anyone not having these results is simply not doing it right or perhaps has poor quality stock.

Dubia are much slower to breed. But once they're established, they do quite well. They make for a nice larger sized feeder for bigger geckos and lizards (my U. Lineatus and tegus love them). I breed both dubia and lateralis and would never ever go back to crickets. Roaches are also a more natural diet for most herps. They live in almost every part of the world. They're mother natures feeders.

I've been researching Dubia roaches for some time now. I'd love to start a colony of them but I live in a 3 floor apt. building and I'm sure if the landlords or other neighbors found one they would FREAK OUT !! :yikes:

I know that they don't infest like other roaches do but I likely wouldn't be able to convince others of that. From what I've read they don't stink, chirp or jump. I currently have a few stray crickets that talk to each other from different rooms and it drives me CRAZY!! Apparently roaches eat almost anything you feed them and are very clean which makes for less maintenance on their enclosure. Also ... once your colony breeds for several generations you don't have to buy feeders all the time.

So I am looking forward to trying them at some point but until then I will have to stick to crickets, silkworms and butterworms.

Dyesub Dave. :biggrin:

 

[audio]

i would probably do the roaches if it weren't for the fact that i can't even look at them. i have like 5-10 crickets going around that i cant for the life of me find and they just keep chirping endlessly.

does the strainer idea work for crickets?? no luck yet but i've tried breeding them

 

[Dyesub Dave]

I've been able to breed crickets before but it's difficult to get the tiny pinheads to a decent size. I'm sure that with enough space and proper enclosures, food and heating it would be easier but it's really a lot of work as they seem to need constant maintenance.

I've heard that roaches need far less maintenance than crickets when it comes to housing and breeding them!!

Dyesub Dave. :biggrin: