Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hi
i want to start feeding crix to my frogs, but i want too breed my own so i don't have to go broke trying to buy them. can anyone help me by telling me how you set them up.
thanx
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Nate
1.1 alanis tincs
0.0.2 Azureus (soon)
0.0.2 imitators very very soon

dont quote me on this but i think this is the way you set it up.

You get say a 10 gallon aquarium keep it in the 70s. Put some egg containers in it, and some moist peat moss. And i think they need fairly high humidity to brred.

But im not sure, other people will give better advice then I.
aj
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Click Here to see my vivarium and steps on how to make a basic vivarium UPDATED 7.18.03 Now complete! All that is needed are some New River Tincs!

kungfu28181: My god. You are insane. -Mon Jun 30 21:41:05

I have an old ten gallon I use but it is actually chepar and more effecient to use large rubber maid containers or for lots of crickets a trash can. If you use the trash can no cover is needed you just run some packing tape around the inside and the can't climb over it, the same can be done with large rubbermaid containers. For food it is way too expensive to buy gut load but it is fairly simple to make your own, for this you can use things like high quality bran cereals (which are cheap because no one eats them),and Chick starter mash which can be bought in bulk at a feed store (if you don't live in a rural area you can have it shipped but it may be hard to find a smaller bag). Oatmeal can be used as a substitute in a pinch but many of the nutrients have been processed out of it. They will also benefit from fruits and vegetables, pretty much any will work, my favorite is baby carrots as they don't mold. Unless you are willing to replace the fruits and vegetables every day a watering system will be needed. One can many people use a wick watering system in which a small animal waterer drips water over a cotton ball, replace the cotton balls often. you can also make one out of a water bottle and dixie cup with a little creativity. Now you will need to put a breeding bin in the enclosure just use a small rubbermaid container filled with dirt. Each female will lay from 100-300 eggs each (females can be identified by the oviposter sticking out of ther abdomen) remove the bin and cover it with an old shirt or cloth, In two to three weeks it will be filled with hundreds of little cricket. Finally room temperature will keep crickets alive longer than a heated room but temperatures of around 80 degrees will cause faster reproduction and egg hatching. Sorry for the long post and any typos I made.

first of thanks for the info. but i still have some questions. where caan i find that bran cereal stuff and also how many adult crickets should i put in the rubbermade container.
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Nate
1.1 alanis tincs
0.0.2 Azureus (soon)
0.0.2 imitators very very soon

You can get the cereal at any grocery store just read the ingredients and try to get something with little or no added sugar and a lot of wheat or grain. As for the number of crickets it really only depends on how many you need, I have been told that you should keep no more than 1000 small crickets in a large rubbermaid container so with enough standing room for this just use paper towel rolls pieces of cardboard and most commonly egg cartons I would say you can probably keep up to two hundred crickets but this will require a lot of cleaning as the old ones die and if they are not removed they can cause problems, this also helps with the smell because crickets do stink and make noise constantly. Unless you are planning on breeding crickets for profit I doubt you will need more than a few hundred to a thousand crickets at a time. It would be a good idea to keep various ages of crickets in the container though so that when the old ones die the younger ones are becoming sexually mature. Finally always remember to save some of your hatchlings to reintroduce into the breeding colony but wait until they are large enough that the other crickets will not eat them.

np

you don't even need a glass tank just use something even a wooden box or a plastic box... buy some of the the biggest ones you can (most if not all will already be pregnant) and put them in the box with some cardboard egg cartons. put some cut open potatoes in it as they're water source or just dampen the egg cartons. also you can feed them otmeal.

i gave some of these full size crickets to my baby monitor lizard and i guess he didn't eat them all and i ended up seeing baby crickets aroud his tank!. Also on ocation i give some to my turtles and when they bite them the eggs fall out.

to get the breeding going quicklybe sure to get the largest crickets you can'

good luck

k