Reptile & Amphibian Forums

high there

well i ned some help, currently i got intrested in breeding crickets and want to know a few things,
1)..i want to have about 100,almost adult sized crickets every month?how long till i can have a steady rate also how many crickets should i have

2)..i have about 6 females and 5 males in a 5 1/2 gall tank with a few hides ,dish with some pottatoes and carrots,and a "dish"about the Dia. of a C.D with about 1 1/2 In. of soil ,i have a 150W Reptile type black light on the side ,by the side with the dish with soil, ive been misting it about 1-2 times a day
ive had this setup like this for a few days,when will they put eggs?
will i see them?
should i leave everything how it is ,leave the breeders there or should i move em to another setup? what do i do?

PS:i need some help you can give me about breeding crickets

As long as you have a moist dish of soil in there, they will lay eggs in it. After about a week I would take the dish out and put it in a container for the hundreds of babies to hatch in. When you do so put a new dish in there. Thats pretty much all you need to do.

Here is a little something that I pulled from http://www.icomm.ca/dragon/crickets.htm

You can add a dish of moist soil to the container above- but you must keep the container of soil moist. The crickets will make a mess of this too and soon you will have soil in the oat or bran substrate- creating a breeding ground for moulds etc..
You can remove 6 to 10 crickets from the container and put them in another one that has soil that has been dampened in it. The crickets will mate and the females will lay up to 500 eggs each in the damp soil. After a week or so remove the adult crickets from this container (oh you should have been feeding them some veggies or fruit while they were in there too).
After the eggs have been laid keep the soil moist.
I think it takes about two weeks before you will start to see tiny little crickets emerge from the soil.
Make sure to provide food for the young crickets, and you can put some egg crate or toilet paper rolls in the container too for hiding places.
About three weeks after the small cricket first emerge they will be about half the size of adult crickets. You may remove them to another container at this time and start the breeding process with some adult crickets again if you like. Anyway- breeding crickets is easy- moist soil is the key.

Thanks,
Andrew

ohh i see,
do you think it is likely to over mist the container with eggs in it?

also how do i keep track and know which conatiner to remove,like how do i know which has eggs and which already hacthed?
what im doing is ever 3 days removing the container and putting in a new one then the one with the eggst im putting them in a coller with 60W light hides and food

also do you think moth and nats and ants are bad for the cricket breeding?

thanks