Hi Daniel,
Sorry, I don't have any pictures of my setup (never really occurred to me to photograph the bugs) it's a decent idea though. Maybe I'll get some here later. As far as your substrate, crickets will lay in just about anything as long as it's moist so you should be alright there. I think you mentioned before that it was drying out too quickly for you so you might want to add something that will retain the moisture longer. They will be ready to lay eggs about 1 week after they start chirping. Temperature is the main key to getting them ready and to hatching the eggs, around 80-90 degrees works pretty well. You'll be able to see the eggs, they look like little thin grains of rice. Remove the container when you think you have enough, or don't remove it's up to you. As long as you keep them warm and moist they'll hatch in about 2 weeks. The main reason I replace mine every couple of days is that I keep around 1,000 or so breeders at any given time and the whole top of the peat moss fills up with about 1/4 inch deep of eggs in that time. I can slap a lid on it, write the date on top, and throw it in one of my incubators and forget about it for a couple weeks. It also allows me to keep different sizes in separate rubbermaids easily so when I need 1/2 inchers I grab a whole tub full of them etc.. Once you get babies they die real easy (that sucks) usually from dehydration, but they can drown in a single drop of water at the same time. What I did to solve this is I took an empty peanut butter jar, drilled some holes in the lid and then invert it on a plate with paper towels. The paper towels are always wet but you don't have standing water for them to drown in. Good luck, if you have any more questions feel free to ask.
Sean
Heart Mountain Herps
