Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Who ever said breeding crickets was easy was wrong about me! I usually buy 1000 adult crickets and set them up in a nice large rubbermaid. Everything always gets so dirty and nasty and all the crickets end up dying. I cant seem to breed them. I need some help on setting up an enclousure for breeding crickets?

Any advice to breed crickets would be great! Also whats a good bedding and how do u breed them?

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Coastal Herps

Crested Geckos Dominate!

2.2 Crested Geckos
.3 Leopard Geckos

I wish I could help you. Crickets are a major pain and most people that try to breed them end up spending tons of time and effort and decide it's just not worth it. This is why I breed roaches and many other herpers as well. They work for geckos, dragons, monitors, and many other reptiles. Read some of the documents in the Help & Support section. Lots of people are now selling roaches in the classifieds.
James
www.blaberus.com

What roaches would be best for crested and leopard gecko colonys? I have seven adult geckos. How many should I buy to start a colony? How do you breed them?

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Coastal Herps

Crested Geckos Dominate!

2.2 Crested Geckos
.3 Leopard Geckos

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Most people go for the cheap lobsters which I usually advise against. Lobsters are a great feeder roach, but the climbing is a lot for beginners to handle and usually turns people off. I have many customers feeding Blaptica dubia to these species you mentioned. They are pretty soft and very easy to work with. No smell, noise, hoping, and best of all easy to keep and reptiles love them. There are a lot of species out there and you can read aboout them on the web. Many people are now selling roaches in the classifieds.
James
www.blaberus.com

But I am afraid you do not have enough reptiles to feed them to.

This is a box 32 inches by 27 inches by 27 inches high, It would produce at least 500 times the crickets you need.

There is almost no work envolved, I feed them every few days as well as watered every few days. It only takes seconds. The box self perpetuates, they nest themselves, hatch on their own, etc. All I do is harvest and change out the box every six or 8 months. dirt substrate.

The key is not doing all the junk I read here, no veggies, for me that seems to kill them. dry food only. laying mash and dogfood. A litebulb for heat, in this case a 40watt incandesent.

And one big key is, do not mess up the cage. It seems to me, crickets do not like to have their homes messed with.

I have two rows of eggcrates, I only harvest off the first row, I do not touch the second row. I take the eggcrates and shake them into another container, I put back what I do not use. Its that simple.

Again, it seems to me, everytime you relocate crickets to a new home, you lose half of them. This includes ones I buy and set up just like I breed them.

This box was seeded, to start with, from 500 crickets(a box of 500)

The rest is more or less about convience for you. But please understand, like with everything, once you get it right, you cannot use them fast enough. Good luck FR

So Frank, how do you water them? Spritz them or what? I am in NY and the humidity always put the kibosh on Crix. 'Course, right now everything is so damp it is too easy to get mold and mildew.
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Sonya

Haven't we warned you about tampering with the structure of a chaotic system?
Mrs. Neutron

Hi, The cage has a solid top with two three inch vents. They are old monitor cages.

Most of the year its dry here, but this time of year, we are tropical, monsoon season. Its very hot, and very humid. You just do not have to water as much.

I have a reptile building, and its outfitted with hose bibs thru out the building. So I just give a quick squirt only on the walls, the middle of the cage always stays dry.

Consider, in humid areas, like where you live, folks air condition rooms, which drys out the air. Here we use swamp coolers, which humidifies the air, so we end up pretty much the same.

I invented this setup when feeding monitors crickets, in these cages, the crickets had no problem breeding like crazy. So out with the monitors and in with egg crates and there you go. The big thing is food, I believe. I hear all this and that and so forth. Like with many things people tend to over analize. When we fed veggies, we had a very high death rate. When we feed only dry food, we have no problems. I have been producing my own crickets for about five years now.

a couple more things that I found odd was, it was recomended to use a hot room or cage. I found crickets use what monitors use, a normal room temperature, 75F, with hotspots. They also live a whole lot longer, up to 10-12 weeks. But then they can control their metobolism. Its possible with cooler temps, and closed up, we do not dry out the crickets so they do not require water at all times. Around here, wild crickets do not have drinking water at all, yet they do fine, why?

I have also used leaflitter over the dirt, it seems to help with the pinheads, but its not necessary.

I use to use a more commerical setup, but it was too much work. So I went to this, which has very little work. I hope this helps. FR

Consider field crickets. I am fortunate to have a couple acres of pesticide free pasture. I can collect fifty crickets in half an hour. They aren't as fragile as the commercial strains. They reproduce well, maybe aren't as productive as commercial strains. They do not grow as fast. They are more durable and are easier. They take fresh greens better. I believe the wild caught crickets are more nutritous. There is the reality of parasites. Dont' think the commercially produced strains are free though. I feel my crickets are cleaner, easier, and more nutritous. You can replace your stock with effort only. Plus you will have a by catch of grasshoppers and spiders. Variety. I bet if someone took this seriously, they will see improved health and color in their pets. Be sure you have them going before the temperatures drop. If you are casual as I am with your approach, you may have to purchase insects periodicly. Consider a different type for further variety. Pinkies are great for this style. One ten gallon of mice makes up my difference.