Reptile & Amphibian Forums

While feeding my crickets yesterday, I noticed I have had a population explosion. There must be about 500 pin heads now (guess I did something right lol). Do I need to do anything special with them food wise? Do I have to have babies and adults in different cages? I feed them very well feed but would they still eat the little ones? Thanks!

Definitely separate the adults as they will eat them, or at least provide lots of hiding places (egg cartons and/or paper towel tubes. As for food I don't think you need anything special other than offering softer foods rather than tough skinned veggies.

They're in a 30 gallon tank, bed a beast stuff at the bottom, about 7 egg cartons and 3 paper towel rolls. There's about 150 adults in there. Haven't really sat down and tried to count them though lol Guess I'll have to go get another container (other one is set up for the mantis') Thanks!

They definately will eat their pinheads. I've sat and watched it happen. The baby crickets were probably laid something like 10-14 days ago. When I have bred/hatched crickets, I've done best keeping the pinheads in a container with some kind of moist soil in there with them (all pushed to one side), like the dirt they hatched out of (peat moss for me). Keep it moist with a light misting once a day. I fed them peas that I had pinched (exposing the softer inside) and small pieces of romaine lettuce every day (so it's moist and fresh). Pinheads don't seem to do well on bare bottomed conteiners at least containers without any moisture. I had a huge die off keeping them in a bare container. Keep the TP rolls or egg crating in there like normal. The hardest part is separating the pinheads from the soil after a week or two and keeping enough containers full of crickets to allow them to grow up and be used. It takes alot of space to have a steady supply of adult crickets, but really isn't too hard. Just a little time and effort. Also, I would recommend against the bed a beast substrate for your crickets. It can get moldy and makes it hard to see and clean out dead crickets and waste. Your biggest problem now is separating 500 pinheads from 150 adults in a container of bed a beast and egg crating. Good luck!
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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com