Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok... I've been trying to breed crickets the last little while and my eggs were coming along nicely until someone broke the news to me that crickets can eat through panty-hose.. so I put my soil full of eggs in the bottom of a storage bin and put a screen cover over top and now my lighting is too far away, my substrate is drying out and after two weeks of letting the substrate sit I have no crickets.
I read on a couple of websites that you can use people heating pads... and then read on other websites that heat pads shouldn't be used for more than 30 minutes without potential for fire hazards... help anyone? How do you do it?

I've been using heating pads for the last few years. If used, they should not have much weight on them and both the caging and surface the pad is on should not be flammable in any way.

If used in this fashion, it most likely will void the company's warranty. Also, some pads will fail, a couple of mine had developed burn marks. Those have to be thrown away.

You would be much better off using an incubator (which I've successfully hatched cricket eggs in). They (the substrate media w/eggs) have to be kept moist or they will fail to hatch. They need to be monitored every day & sprayed lightly if the substrate is drying.

Another heating method is FlexWatt--many people have been successful with it. Also, you can use a dimmer with a ceramic heat emitter.

Due to the hassle of strict culturing parameter required for raising crickets, I defaulted to tropical roaches years ago. I like them 100 times better than crickets. They are much easier to raise & do not carry diseases & bad odors-- misconceptions that many people still believe.