Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Do you folks keep your own populations of reproducing crickets? I don't feed them to my box turtle, but figure I could save some money if I had a reproducing population of them for my frogs. What is required? How big of a starting population, etc., and how long until one sees new crickets?

The zoo where I volunteer has them..... raw sweet potato slices I have noticed, and used egg carton bottoms I have noticed.....

I raise mealworms and superworms. It is not worth the hassle raising crickets. They are relatively cheap (LLL is offering 1000 crickets for $17.95 delivered on this website right now).

Tim

Third Eye

Can you tell me how to raise mealworms/superworms? Would love to do that for my box turtles and bearded dragon. Or maybe where to find the info out. Thanks

You can find out quite a bit just by doing of Google search of "raise mealworms."

Here's one I found on how to raise superworms:
www.progeckos.com/caresheets/superworm.htm

And mealworms:
www.sialis.org/raisingmealworms.htm

The main difference between the two is that superworms need to be isolated into their own container (like a babyfood jar) in order to pupate.

I find meal/superworms to be an easy, low maintenance food source. Raising them is kind of fun (though I grew up keeping bugs as pets).

Tim

Ditto to Spuckler.

Mealworms are not really a great staple food for box turtles. Superworms, however, are absolutely fantastic. I raise my own, mainly so that I can have different sizes and freshly molted individuals available at all times. It is still a pain, but nowhere near as filthy/stinky as raising crickets.

You know what's smelly? Raising fruitfles. I did that for a while for juvenile frogs/toads.