My Cricket Breeding Colony

hyposhawn

Newbie
While I decided to move on to crickets and started a breeding colony today. I set up a little colony and hope it works out this time:roll:. I got 50 crix to start and I know how to do everything. Here are some pics. The tinfoil has holes in it and in the lid id has a opening so it's good circulation.

Taquiq
 

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Nayte

New member
Right on :) Looks good! If you throw a potato in there, they sometimes eat it from the inside out and make a little feeding home out of it. Just a tip? :p
 

tanala

New member
1. thats a lot of bananas for a handful of crickets. I dont know what type of food the yellow one is
2. what kind of substrate is that one the right side? pine bark/ coconut bark? All feces that is produced by the crickets will fall between this substrate, so whats the purpose of this?
3. I wonder how an aquarium can be cleaned quick and efficient...

I breed crickets for 7 years now. Since then, i never bought any new crickets, all the critters that i have today are descendants of the original stock. IMO, 3 factors are very important for a succesful cricket breeding:
1. hygiene
-plastic boxes can be cleaned easily (by washing)
-no substrate at the bottom. Food in dishes (accessible even for the smallest specimens)
-not too much moist food at one time. For a basic supply of water, use a watering hole.
2. food
-IMO no fruit, vegetables etc. are necessary if you have a watering hole.
-good supply of proteins
3. routine
Cleaning, supply of water and food, and breeding must be done with a certain rouine. Sounds stupid, but one of the most important points.
 

tanala

New member
depends on how many animals are in the tank. Once a month or so, if you keep the rest of the setup dry.
Why not use a laying box? You are able to remove it and put it into another box. This means that you keep the crickets separated by size. This can be helpful when you catch them (for feeding), in case that you have more than some geckos
 

hyposhawn

Newbie
2 Questions

1) How long does it take for them to start laying eggs?

2) 9 of them died even though they have food and water.
 

T-ReXx

New member
2 Questions

1) How long does it take for them to start laying eggs?

2) 9 of them died even though they have food and water.

1) Adults will usually begin laying immediately if conditions are right. Eggs hatch within a few weeks.

2) Crickets have a very short life span. Adults rarely live more than a month once they reach full size. You will have die-offs, it's inevitable.

A few suggestions:

Ditch the substrate. I agree that using a substrate will just make cleaning harder and make it easier for bacteria and pests to invade. Use a lay box, it will allow you to seperate by size and incubate eggs away from adults, which may eat them. Use a deli cup or similar container with a few inches of moist substrate like sand, coir, or soil.

I agree, feed less wet foods. Moisture can wreak havoc in a cricket colony. You want everything dry other than the egg laying container. For a water source, use water crystals, potatoes, damp paper towels or a "cricket waterer."

Feed lots of high quality dry food. A mix of dog food, fish flakes, and commercial cricket chow works great.

Add more crickets! For a successful breeding colony, you need at least 100 adults. More if you intend to feed them off at the same time. I'd recommend getting 1000, actually.

Be prepared for a lot of noise/mess. Crickets are a pain. They make lots of noise, are very messy, die off easily and escape constantly. Be prepared for escapes(I have cats on escapee duty) and lots of noise. Better yet try roaches, they're a hell of a lot easier to deal with and don't die off as fast.
 

hyposhawn

Newbie
I will take the cocoa bark out. I use cricket water gel and they have laid there first clutch. A lot have died of the adults. There around 25 left. I feed flake foods to the crix. I have a seperate container for the eggs that is a cricket keeper has cricket calcium bedding, and has a egg carton. I mark the dates oh hatching, laid, etc.
 

hyposhawn

Newbie
How to Incubate Cricket Eggs, URGENT!

I have had my crix for about a week and a half, since Sept. 20. They have laid eggs and I keep the eggs in a small cricket keeper. The eggs are in a egg carton. They laid 5 days ago and I never realized I had to keep them moist. I started putting 1 spray in the morning, 1 in the afternoon and several at night. How exactly do I incubate eggs!?

Sorry this is here but in the food section not a lot of people see it and it takes a couple of days to get replies. Please don't move it for a couple of days.

Thanks again Reply ASAP.
 

danscantle

New member
This is how you breed crickets

This is how I breed crickets. There's 1 thing to consider first off: if you cannot keep all life stages above 85 F this is not worth your time.

I keep crickets of all stages in large rubbermaid bins with a screen lid. I only feed chicken layer mash and have no trouble whatsoever. Water is provided in a 4.5" delicup lid filled with water crystals. Water crystals are available at any home and garden store, and are simply agarose crystals that expand and store a considerable volume of water. If you are going to breed crickets this is the cheapest option. Using vegetables as a moisture is too expensive and only increases the chance of a bacterial/fungal infection that will destroy an entire colony.

I provide delicups filled with moist, autoclaved soil to the adult insects. It is possible to use unsterilized soil but you'll be unable to recycle it after a few uses. I generally keep 4 soil cups per 5,000 adults and move them out after 5-10 days of continuous egg laying. During this time I generally will re-moisten the soil once or twice with a garden sprayer.

For incubation I transfer the soil cups to larger delicups, stacking them 2 to a large cup. I do this because the room I rear them in has continuous airflow, which sucks out any moisture very quickly. They stay in the giant delicups for roughly 7-10 days, at which point they begin hatching. I transfer all hatchlings to a fresh rubbermaid bin and the cycle repeats.

The photos below illustrate the two stages for Gryllodes sigillatus. Gryllodes are smaller and take longer to mature than the industry stable Acheta domestica but: they are more drought resistant, less noisy, and considerably less smelly. They are the perfect cricket for roughly 95% of all gekkotans.

Remember, you want to keep your adult crickets as hot and dry as possible. Any residual moisture will spawn an infection and kill your colony. Unfortunately, keeping your hatchlings too dry will dry them out and kill them. I cover hatchling cages with syran wrap for the first 2 weeks, after which point their evaporative water loss rates have stabilized.

If you are attempting to produce adult crickets to feed your collection, your cricket farm will take up a fair chunk of space. If you need small crickets (1/4 inch and smaller) to feed small geckos, you could get by with much less space if you're willing to purchase 50-100 adults every week or two.

Good luck.

crickets.jpg

crxhatch.jpg
 

Riverside Reptiles

Administrator (HMFIC)
You need to stop making multiple threads for the same topic! You already have a thread for this in the feeder forum where it belongs. You've been asked before not to do this.
 

hyposhawn

Newbie
Ok Sorry it won't happen again.

But I did something I wasn't sure I was suppose to do. I put sterilized dirt from my backyard. I soaked it in boiling water and then put it on the bottom of the incubator and dumped the eggs on to it. Is this ok? I keep them moist by spraying it a lot.
 
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