Starting Crickets again

I decided to give crickets another try. This time I hand picked some nice plump females and a few males. As soon as I brought them home, the males were chirping up a storm. Today I caught two females laying eggs in the soil I provided them for nesting. They are in a large critter keeper with egg carton, wet paper towel for water (I need to go to the store for veggies), and a dish with soil (eco earth) in it. For food I'm using dog food, oats, and bran flakes, ground into a course powder (its not completely a powder. Its got chunks of dog food and whole oats. It was actually pretty comical to watch the crickets carry around pieces of the food and try to steal it from each other.)

I have a small bin waiting for the egg dish. It is warmer in the room this time around as well. It is currently around 85 degrees. Since I saw those two females laying eggs today, I was thinking of moving the egg dish to the bin and putting in another egg dish.

In my experience breeding crickets is fairly easy. Just make sure that you keep them dry and give them enough heat. The nesting area needs to stay damp at all times or the females won’t lay in that area. I would give them some time to deposit the eggs before you swap out nesting areas. The eggs won’t hatch for at least 2 weeks if the temperature is right….long if left in cooler conditions….so you have time.
Good luck…

Pitoon

Well I'm having a hard time keeping they laying soil damp. I think I may have lost the first batch of eggs due to the soil drying out. I dampened it again, but I doubt anything will hatch. Any advice on keeping it damp? Should I just mist it once or twice a day?

I use disposal container with a lid.

Remove the lid to allow them to plant their eggs. Moisten the substrate then put the lid on to incubate.

I use sand over eco earth because eco earth can mold in time.