Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hey um my dra[bleep]on eats tons! So does my collared and armadillo lizards so I am about to breed my own crickets to make life easier and cheeper! The only th[bleep] is I don't know type of soil to have them lay e[bleep][bleep]s on. Can I just use sand? Or can I just d[bleep] up some soil from my backyard? And what do I have to do to clean it, I heard you have to bake it on a coo[bleep] sheet at 300 de[bleep]res for like 30mins. Is this true? Thanks!

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it don't know what was up but whenever someone wrote a g or ing a bleep was put in its place ... wierd huh

alissa

whoa that is weird. but can someone help me with my original message please?

i can try.. here it goes.. i have baked a lot of things in my life.. rocks,wood ..but never soil so i don't know if that is true.. but if you want to breed crickets the thing to do is use either regular soil.. i wouldn't recommend the soil from you back year because who know what kind of chemicals is in it ..or potting soil .. you can either make a seperate cage or make like a humid hide out of a gladware container.. fill it up with damp soil and in about two weeks you should have little babie crickets popping out of the soil.. if you want to make a seperate container place damp soil and food in that container and about 10 adult crickets after about a week take the crickets out and wait for the babies to pop out.. hope that helps if not here is a list of websites that could help

don't make the whole cage out of dirt they are messy and mix dirt in with their food.. becomes like an icky mush..

1.www.iosphere.net/~ajs/breeding.htm
2.www.icomm.ca/dragon/crickets.htm
3.www.arbreptiles.com/bugs/crix.html
4.www.herpindex.com/center/cricbred.html

hope that helps..

alissa

You don't have to use soil at all. they will lay there eggs in moist cotton or filter matterial and its easier to clean. Make sure that you feed the crickets plenty of protein or they won't grow. Crickets are a pain to raise, have you considered zoophobas or hissing roaches? Both are easier and better food items.

what are zoophobas? And where can I get hissing cockroaches? What do I have to do to breed both this creatures? I live in Canada to so i'm not sure if they'll be as easy to get as in the states.

n

you should be able to find plenty of sellers in the classified section here at kingsnake.com under . For hissing roaches start off with about 40 adults. Keep them in absolute darkness(they breed better that way) and feed them fruit. Don't worry these are not a pest species and won't survive if they get loose in your house. I keep mine in a plastic garment bag filled with cardboard in a closet. For the zoophobas(super mealworms). seperate ten to 20 adults into individual containers without food or a water source. When deprived of food and the vibration of other superworms, they with pupate and transform into adults. Place the adults beetles into a cage with a container of moist soil. They will lay their eggs in the soil. when you notice tiny wigglers in the soil, transfer the young to a rearing container filled with dry oats and vegitables. Add fresh veggies for water once and while. They will soon grow big enough to eat. To transfer the young from the soil to the oats, dump the soil in a strainer and place on top of the oats. after one night the young will have migrated out of the soil. It will take time to get things going, but in the end you'll see that they are much easier then crickets and a better diet for your WD's.