My goal is to create an enclosure/system into which I can place a few hundred crickets that will provide a daily supply of both small and large feeders. I want the system to be simple and low maintenance. I do not want to have 2 or 3 separate enclosures and shuffle crickets between them. I don't want to sort or sex them. Basically I want to put food and water in and take crickets out--and maybe clean up every once in a while.
The problems:
-Crickets are cannibalistic. The adults will eat the babies.
-Crickets are dirty. They'll poop on everything.
-Crickets are stupid. They'll drown in a water dish.
-Crickets will not breed if the temperature is too high or too low.
-It's not worth spending a great deal of time and money, or else there's no benefit over just ordering 1000 at a time from a professional breeder.
-Crickets have a short lifespan--only about 8 weeks. Also, the babies grow up quickly. So you can't buy a 6 month supply. At best you can get a months worth if you are feeding adults, and just a week or two if you are feeding small.
I'm thinking along the following lines. All questions, suggestions, comments are welcome. I'm making plenty of assumptions here, and I'd like to hear about it if any of them are wrong.
Start with a large plastic container. It should be 18" deep or so. Poke some air holes in the lid.
Cover the bottom with 2 or 3 inches of peat moss substrate.
Along one side (short side, not the long side) vertically stack egg cartons. These should be the half size, 18 egg variety stacked on their sides. That way they won't be so high as to allow the crickets to jump out. The larger flats (36 egg) will work if you cut them in half. 7 or 8 egg flats will hold a very large number of crickets.
Get three small bowls (ceramic, plastic, whatever). Into one you put kitten chow. In another you put commercial cricket water gel. In the third you put greens, oranges, whatever. Keep the kitten chow bowl full. The others not so full. The water gel lasts a long time, and if you have too much it will accumulate poop. Then you have to clean it out and throw away unused gel. The greens container keeps it off the substrate which reduces mold. Don't leave any greens in there longer than 24 hours, and 12 is better. They don't need greens 24/7. Once day for 12 hours, or even every other day should be fine. They always have the kitten chow.
This is supposed to 1) provide a constant water source without killing the crickets or taking up a lot of time (like damping a sponge every day). The gel is cheap and lasts forever, plus you can get it with vitamin/calcium supplements; 2) keep a supply of food available at all times, including protein--remember this is all going into your herp). Keeping plenty of food around should also reduce cannibalism; 3) provide some variety in their diet.
Now get a second plastic container with a lid. It should be about shoebox size or less. Poke small air holes in the lid. Put in about 1.5 inches of a wet substrate like cypress mulch. At "ground level" cut a 1" square hole in the side of the shoebox. Bury the shoebox in the peat moss so that the 1" access hole is level with the peat moss as well. Remember to leave the lid on.
The idea here is to create an egg laying area. The 1" square access hole is meant to limit the traffic from one box to another. The peat moss outside is dry, so not great for egg laying. Females will prefer the moist ground in the shoebox, so they'll have a reason to go in. Not everyone will find it, but that's OK. Some males might make it in too and eat the new babies. That's OK too. As long as enough eggs are lain and a decent percentage reach maturity we're in good shape. The egg laying container should have it's own water gel and food containers, though small and flat enough to allow access for the tiny babies.
Remember the goal is to keep the colony going so that you always have crickets. You also want to have egg laying going on all the time so there's always a good mix of sizes.
Clean up should be pretty easy. Every few weeks take out the egg cartons and replace. Stir the peat moss. This will bury all the dead crickets, poop and other yuck. If you bury live crickets they'll mostly dig back out, so don't worry about that. Same goes for the egg laying area. Stir it up. You'll lose some eggs. So what? Maybe after 6 months or a year you could clean both containers and replace the substrate.
As for heat, I'm thinking a 40 watt incandescent bulb (small size, like those candle shaped bulbs). You could use a heat pad, but there would be a lot of wasted heat given the thickness of the substrate. Actually, keeping it warm for me is not the problem. I'm in SoCal, so the crickets in my garage rarely get below maybe 50 degrees even without heat. They won't thrive, but that won't kill them either. My problem will come this summer when the garage gets over 100 degrees and stays there. Might have to bring the crickets inside.
That's about it. Probably have to mist the egg laying area, but given the limited airflow it ought to retain moisture really well. Only other thing is that maybe it will work too well and I'll wind up with too many crickets? If the colony starts out at 500 adults and grows to 1000 (even after I take out 15-20 per day to feed the lizards) then maybe euthanize some.
Again, comments and thoughts are greatly appreciated.
