Crickets

So my leopard gecko has lost all interest in mealworms but she's tossing down crickets like crazy. My sister has a bearded dragon that goes through a lot of crickets and she had some large crickets left over from her meal and my sister did not want to keep them because they make so much noise and they smell. So I thought, why not try to breed them! Right now I have them in a tiny kritter keeper with those black tubes. I'm about to move them into a small kritter keeper and I'm washing out a tub to use later.

The chirping....only males do this right?

Females...A few of the females are huge and look really fat. Does this mean they are pregnant?

What should I provide them as far as substrate to lay their eggs in?

How can I best escape proof a tub like this (this is not mine, but it is exactly the same except mine is clear)

http://www.vermiculturenorthwest.com...proppedlid.JPG

First of all all you need is a small container with coco fiber for the laying substrate. Keep it moist but not soaking, the eggs should hatch after 2-3 days after being laid, but sometimes can take up to a week. I used to breed crickets and at one time i was producing over a 1000 a week but i gave up after all the work and cleaning and the smell, good luck\
and the make it escape proof seal all possible holes.

For water I gave them some paper towel/tissue that was soaked in water (but not dripping) and they've been drinking from that. I believe the females may be using it to lay their eggs in.

Thanks for the advice. :D

I keep mine in a 10 gallon tank....I keep egg cartons in there and a couple of tubes. I also put some left over greens in there and some fruit. Then I have a bowl with a sponge in it....filled with water. This way they can drink the water but get out of it as well. I am not sure why they don't chirp...but the ones I have don't. Which is awesome. But we clean out the cage every week as they are stinky icky lil bugs.

crickets are easy to breed...

10 gal...
carrots.

once they start chirping offer some moist or even wet dirt in a bowl..


put the bowl in another 10 gal after a week.

warmer they are the better they do

humidity is your enemy.

Ok, I'll set up a 10g tank today. The crickets I have chirp. Either they are dead silent or they suddenly become obnoxiously loud with their chirping. Right now I have them next to the computer and one cricket is making the tiniest chirp noise. I can barely hear it. I might not be able to breed them because of my mother in law. She's out of town right now but if she comes back and can't stand the sound or smell, then these crickets go to be lizard food.

Thanks for the info!

how many crickets do u need for them to start breeding, and how long should i wait before they start breeding? Right now I have 50 crickets.... is this enough?

50 is plenty. But in my experience crickets are a pain to breed. Ditch the crickets and buy some turkistan roaches. They are the size of crickets and breed prolifically. And best of all, they are way better for your leos and run around attracting alot of attention to themselves. I just bought 1500 from a guy on faunaclassifieds.com for 25 shipped! Ill never have to buy feeders again, and will soon be selling them myself because ill have so many.

You can start with as little as 50. The females have the black "stem" protruding out the backside while the males only have the two antenna looking things coming out their butt.

I use vermiculite which I get at the garden center for the breeder bedding. I used an empty sour cream tub. They can lay eggs up to in inch into the soil, so be sure it's deeper than that. You can also put a screen over the soil so they lay the eggs between the grates in the screen and that way no other crickets will eat the eggs.

make sure after a while to take the bedding out so you don't have the pinheads with the adults. There are so many details to the process that I couldn't outline it all here. There are many guides online. Post any other questions here and I'll try and answer.

I also breed mealworms, working on my first colony now.

I recently started my own cricket colony, starting with 60 adults due to my parents and my disgust with roaches ( I don't like most bugs, they freak me out lol). It has worked really well, I don't need a lot of crickets, just enough to feed my baby geckos often and my adults once in a while.

I put a human heating pad under my cricket enclosure and it seems to really make the adults go into super breeding mode lol

The trick is to not overpopulate, otherwise they will start dying very very quickly! For me keeping the babies alive is much easier than keeping adults alive. :weirdface