missinasworld
New member
Alright I have been breeding my own crickets for a sohrt time and am now on to my 2nd generation of crickets but Im having 1 major problem. My crickets have a high mortality rate as babies. This is my set up:
For eggs: I left a tub in my gecko rack empty of geckos and put the egg box from the crickets in there to hatch. the eggs are kept at a nice 91F and hatch out THOUSANDS of crickets. and here is a shot:
For newly hatched crickets: I have 2 20QT plastic bins with screen tops set up like this with water crystals:
Crickets get moved with their egg box to this setup when they are like 5 days old or so
Next cage: when the crickets look like they need more room or when they get older I move them to a 58qt tub with screen top and I move from water crystals to chick wateries with foam and then the little plastic cut inserts to keep the crickets from drawning.
Food for all stages is a mix of fish flacks, premade pet-store purchased cricket chow, blenderized cat food and whole grain cerials with veggies and fruits added in for good measure.
Now the deaths are happening between once they get moved from the heated tub in the rack to the 20QT bins in the laundry room-which normly stays around 85 to 95F. I moed a bunch of baby crickets into a 20QT tub at the beginning of the week and now I would say more then half of them have died off. I have looked at them with a magnifing glass and I don't see any external parasites and I don't have these kinds of dye-offs in the adults unless someone hits the tub and spills water out of their water dish..but I use water crystals on the babies. So on the off chanse its the size of the container, I just moved a bunch of 8day old crickets into a 58QT tub with tons of tolet paper rolls and egg crates..and by a bunch they are nymphs and I probably could have had a full handfull of moving cricket babies :shock:
So anyone see anything hugly wrong with my set up? is this high baby cricket dye off normal?
Thanks for any help and advice!
Missina
thegeckoroom
For eggs: I left a tub in my gecko rack empty of geckos and put the egg box from the crickets in there to hatch. the eggs are kept at a nice 91F and hatch out THOUSANDS of crickets. and here is a shot:
For newly hatched crickets: I have 2 20QT plastic bins with screen tops set up like this with water crystals:
Crickets get moved with their egg box to this setup when they are like 5 days old or so
Next cage: when the crickets look like they need more room or when they get older I move them to a 58qt tub with screen top and I move from water crystals to chick wateries with foam and then the little plastic cut inserts to keep the crickets from drawning.
Food for all stages is a mix of fish flacks, premade pet-store purchased cricket chow, blenderized cat food and whole grain cerials with veggies and fruits added in for good measure.
Now the deaths are happening between once they get moved from the heated tub in the rack to the 20QT bins in the laundry room-which normly stays around 85 to 95F. I moed a bunch of baby crickets into a 20QT tub at the beginning of the week and now I would say more then half of them have died off. I have looked at them with a magnifing glass and I don't see any external parasites and I don't have these kinds of dye-offs in the adults unless someone hits the tub and spills water out of their water dish..but I use water crystals on the babies. So on the off chanse its the size of the container, I just moved a bunch of 8day old crickets into a 58QT tub with tons of tolet paper rolls and egg crates..and by a bunch they are nymphs and I probably could have had a full handfull of moving cricket babies :shock:
So anyone see anything hugly wrong with my set up? is this high baby cricket dye off normal?
Thanks for any help and advice!
Missina
thegeckoroom
