Breeding Crickets

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baseball2k26

New member
I am thinking of breeding crickets but I have not gotten my Leo yet and at what age should i start breeding crickets.

Also for breeding crickets what would i need? Should i get this Lee's Kricket Keeper - Feeding Accessories - Reptile - PetSmart or a cheap one you can buy for little kids that just holds bugs. or this Rep-Cal Cricket Shaker - Feeding Accessories - Reptile - PetSmart. What else would i need for breeding crickest. Product links/ names would be helpful

also i found this http://www.petco.com/product/12675/Flightless-Fruit-Flies.aspx?CoreCat=RepAmp_LeopardGeckos. would leopards eat fruit flies.
 
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Paintballislife

New member
Hey, what i did in my dragon cage, and what i do now for breeding crickets is a terrarium, the only food i leave out is gut load. 10-20 gallon is fine, just get some regular dirt substrate form home depot, put some plants in there that you might liek to grow, liek i have herbs right now. As long as the crickets have a good food source they will leave them alone. Get about 50 large crickets, tell them to get some that are sexually mature. By that i mean they are almost full grown. Then just leave them int he terrarium, the females almost immediately start laying eggs. Keep the dirt soft and in about 3-4 weeks you'll see pin heads! Flukers makes good stuff, they have a cricket feed and a gutload/water supplement, i leave both in mine. This is mine, i just got 50 crickets, id o it this way because it takes a few weeks for crickets to become big enough for semi mature geckos. Lay some carboard cut up egg cartons in there for them to hide under.

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I just got some night crawlers and put them in there to help the plants out. I have one plant that doesnt like the setup right now, but the mint and oregano are doing great, this is about 1 week in. I just started everything back up. I had a bearded dragon for 3 years, after 6 months i never had to buy crickets again. They were breeding in his 55 gallon. For feeding time i would put the veggies out for him and the crickets would eat too. hopefully this helps you. Dont waste your money on the cricket keepers, get a nice used aquarium off craigslist.
 
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Paintballislife

New member
btw i dont know if geckos eat fruit flies, i assume they would, but they are more trouble then they are worth IMO, and arnt as satisfying as crickets or meal worms. They stink too.
 
cliff_f

cliff_f

New member
If you are breeding crickets for just one animals it is not going to be worth your time. You will need about 2-3 large tubs to grow crickets up in also quite a few smaller tubs to raise pinheads in. You are going to have thousands of crickets on hand at all times just so you can have the sizes you need. I breed some of my own crickets but I have around 80 some animals I feed and I still end up with more crickets then I know what to do with. Just order a few hundred at a time and keep them on hand, you will be much better off.
 
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Paintballislife

New member
on average there was at least 10 m/l and a hand ful of small ones. all it was is i had a three plant pot, the long ones that normally go on the outside of a window. Soil in that and reptibark on top. Like i said, that was for my beardie, which ate plants too, my geckos need a more sustainable diet of them hence the dedicated breed cage.
 
cliff_f

cliff_f

New member
Ok I might be mistaken but that sounds like you are letting them reproduce in side the bearded dragons cage. That is not breeding crickets. Now correct me if I am wrong but it sure sounds like you are just letting a small amount reproduce in the cage, that is just laziness and poor husbandry if that is the case. There is no way you are only going to have 10m/l crickets if you are properly breeding them. You are going to have thousands of crickets at all times that you are raising up. I think I would know what I am talking about since I do breed some of my own crickets.
 
jmhherpetology

jmhherpetology

New member
Just some food for thought. Since you are going to have a leopard gecko, and a lot of people (Ron Tremper included) have raised dozens of generations of leos on nothing but mealworms...go with mealworms instead of crickets. They are so much easier, cleaner, don't make noise, don't get out and die behind your furniture...just better in every way. Just a thought. I've done both for a long time and have finally kicked crickets to the curb completely...and my life is SOOOO much simpler now.
 
cliff_f

cliff_f

New member
jmhherpetology said:
Just some food for thought. Since you are going to have a leopard gecko, and a lot of people (Ron Tremper included) have raised dozens of generations of leos on nothing but mealworms...go with mealworms instead of crickets. They are so much easier, cleaner, don't make noise, don't get out and die behind your furniture...just better in every way. Just a thought. I've done both for a long time and have finally kicked crickets to the curb completely...and my life is SOOOO much simpler now.
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Just because they have raised them on mealworms does not prove they are the healthiest choice for them. It just shows that they can be raised on mealworms without out killing them. I highly disagree with using mealworms as a primary diet for any reptile. That is just my two cents on them, look at the nutrition facts compared to crickets.
 
Riverside Reptiles

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
Mealworms are fine as part of a varied diet. But I wouldn't use them as a main source of food. Here's a good article to read in regards to that: The Pro?s and Con?s of Mealworms as a food for reptiles

If you're trying to breed a feeder insect on a small scale, I'd suggest B. Dubia roaches. They give live birth, so there's no eggs, etc to worry about hatching. And they're reproduce on a lesser rate than say crickets or some of the faster growing/breeding roaches. They also have a MUCH longer life span than crickets. So, the ones that arent getting fed off right away will actually last and you don't end up with tons of dead insects all the time to deal with.
 
jmhherpetology

jmhherpetology

New member
You guys are very much correct. There has been a lot of dispute as to the nutritional value of mealworms. I do a lot of things to gutload and supplement with mine. I have been throwing around the idea of breeding roaches as I hear that they are much easier and better than crickets, however, my wife has yet to jump on the band wagon of having roaches in the house. As what is best, etc. I think it is like anything else in the world...you can always find an expert to say anything about anything. Somewhere, someone is saying that mealworms are great, and somewhere someone is saying that they are bad. I just find what works for me.
 
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Paintballislife

New member
I have kicked the idea around of roaches also, however, god forbid i drop the cup of those for any reason, instant infestation... (correct me if im wrong) crickets will die, mealworms will die without breeding. Thats the only thing i am nervous about. Right now i leave a cup of mealworms in the cage pretty much all the time, primarily because I have one horrible hunter that is a fussy eater also. (wont eat when im around). And i do 10 crickets or so a day for the three.
 
Riverside Reptiles

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
Paintballislife said:
I have kicked the idea around of roaches also, however, god forbid i drop the cup of those for any reason, instant infestation... (correct me if im wrong) crickets will die, mealworms will die without breeding. Thats the only thing i am nervous about. Right now i leave a cup of mealworms in the cage pretty much all the time, primarily because I have one horrible hunter that is a fussy eater also. (wont eat when im around). And i do 10 crickets or so a day for the three.
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Tropical roaches will not infest your house. Crickets are far more likely to cause infestation issues. Roaches also have a higher meat to shell ratio, they don't chirp, they don't jump, they don't smell, they have a longer intestinal tract and hold their gut load longer, and as I said, they live longer so you don't end up with a bunch of dead bugs around all the time. The two most popular types are B. Dubia and Blatta lateralis. Do a search through this forum and you'll find lots of info on both.
 
cliff_f

cliff_f

New member
Riverside Reptiles said:
Tropical roaches will not infest your house. Crickets are far more likely to cause infestation issues. Roaches also have a higher meat to shell ratio, they don't chirp, they don't jump, they don't smell, they have a longer intestinal tract and hold their gut load longer, and as I said, they live longer so you don't end up with a bunch of dead bugs around all the time. The two most popular types are B. Dubia and Blatta lateralis. Do a search through this forum and you'll find lots of info on both.
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That is not 100% correct I have a friend of mine who has hissing roaches running around his house from this winter when he knocked over a tub. We was actually just talking about them this weekend because his wife is on his ass about them.
 
Riverside Reptiles

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
I guess that I should clarify that I was speaking of B. Dubia and Blatta Lateralis (although I did in the past breed hissers also with zero infestation issues). I guess if you let enough of anything go inside your house it could cause a problem. But I live in southern Va where it's warm and humid most of the year, and after literally years of breeding roaches at this point, I have never become even a little bit infested. And it's not unusual for me to drop a few here and there. Back in the days when I raised crickets, it seemed like I always had some amount of crickets running around the house chirping though.

BTW I doubt that your friend is actually "infested" with hissers as much as it is just the ones he knocked over haven't died out yet. They're big and hearty and can live a very long time. But I doubt they'll actually breed without proper temps/food/etc.
 
cliff_f

cliff_f

New member
In my opinion one roach in the house is a infestation. Roaches are nasty creatures and I do not want any in my house in any shape form or numbers. Also I have heard roaches can cause allergic reactions in some people. I have never heard of that with crickets (am I wrong?) I would much rather deal with crickets in my house any day. I really do not have a problem with crickets running loose in my house the ones that do get loose pretty much stay in my reptile room.
 
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Paintballislife

New member
actually, roaches are very clean creatures, they constantly groom themselves, its their crap that does damage. Caused from what they eat.
 
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