Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I did a quick scan down the page and didn't find much on cricket breeding. I bought 100 crickets, through them in a 10 gallon, with egg carton, cricket chow, and cricket jelly for Ca and water. This works great for keeping them alive and gutloaded for feeding but will I have success getting them to breed? Do you guys rotate your enclosures to allow the eggs to be undisturbed-->and same for the pinheads? What do the crickets lay on? Should I provide a lay site/box?

Thanks for your input

Ian

>>I did a quick scan down the page and didn't find much on cricket breeding. I bought 100 crickets, through them in a 10 gallon, with egg carton, cricket chow, and cricket jelly for Ca and water. This works great for keeping them alive and gutloaded for feeding but will I have success getting them to breed? Do you guys rotate your enclosures to allow the eggs to be undisturbed-->and same for the pinheads? What do the crickets lay on? Should I provide a lay site/box?
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>>Thanks for your input
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>>Ian

You will want some soil/dirt for them to lay eggs in. And, IME, a lot more adults. My semi successful foray into crix breeding involved trays of dirt (cheap pie pans) moved through the adult enclosure and then put into plastic bags til pinheads appear. When the zillion pinheads die down to a few hundred I got sick of them and invested in cockroaches. Your troubles will be getting good humidity for tiny babys without growing mold and feeding them without losing tons. Different bins for different sizes. If you can dig info out of Frank Retes (FR on the monitor forum) he had an 'easy' way to do all this. Didn't work for me in damp dank upstate NY.
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Sonya

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

Ian,
Don't do it!!! If you are one of those people like me you think why buy them I'll just raise my own. I worked like a dog for months rotaing crickets in and out of breeding containers and then waiting for the eggs to hatch only to end up with a few dozen pinheads. My recommendation is either keep buying noisy, smelly crickets or start raising roaches like I did. If I had of known how how hassle-free roaches were 6 years ago I wouldn't have sold off all of my cricket eating critters (tarantulas, geckos, beardies and scorpions) as it is now I am wishing I had those guys back.

Joe

Well, I have a small colony of African burrowing roaches. They are about the size of crickets, but well, they're always hidden from the predator well underneath any substrate available.

What kind of roaches do you breed? I like crickets because if they get loose, they die.... eventually. I'm terrified, or should I say.. my wife is, that any loose roaches will colonize my townhouse.

Any ideas? Thanks

Ian

Here's a picture of my #1 bug eater!

All of the roaches I had recommended in a previous post. Dubias, discoids, etc are non pest species. In other words even if they escape they won't infest your house.
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Joe

"Life is a banquet and most poor fools are starving to death"

1.2 Amel Motleys het Snow
0.1 Snow Motley
1.1 Emory Rats het Albino
0.1 Albino Emory Rat
1.1 Taiwan Beauties
0.0.3 Yellow Ackies
and a Partridge in a pear tree
actually he's a Blue & Gold Macaw