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  1. #1
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    How to set up a breeding colony of crickets?

    This is mostly curiosity. I don't have any real need to breed crickets.

    So, straight out, how do you do it? All I really know about crickets is they're noisy, messy and should be gut loaded and/or supplement dusted before being fed to something.

  2. #2
    Registered User jfreels's Avatar
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    IMO, they are about the worst to breed. I gave up on my second incubation term. Anyway, here's how you can go about it....

    You'll need
    • 3 - tubs (breeding, rearing, hatching)
    • Deli cup
    • Ecco-Earth or some type of moist bedding (vermiculite, organic pesticide free soil, etc.)
    • Food/water dishes. I use plastic petri dishes
    • 100-300 large crickets
    • egg crate or fast food drink holders...needs to be cardboard .
    • food, I use gutload. You could use cat/dog food.
    • water, I use water crystals and carrots


    Setup your breeding cricket bin...
    • Add egg crate
    • Add food & water sources
    • fill your deli cup with moist bedding of your choice then place cup in breeding container
    • add crickets


    Leave the crickets alone for a couple weeks, just make sure they always have food and water. After 3-7 days you should be able to start seeing the eggs in the deli cup. If it's slammed full of eggs, take it out and put it in the incubation tub. If there are not many eggs, then leave it in there for up to two weeks. If you don't see any after two weeks, something is wrong with your breeding container (temps wrong, not good food/water sources or maybe sterile crickets).

    After placing the deli cup full of eggs into the incubation tub, make sure the tub stays warm and the soil stays moist. Not sopping wet though. I would spray the soil every time it started turning lighter.

    After a couple weeks you should now have a lot of pinhead crickets. Make sure they have a little bit of egg crate, not much though since they don't need much. Make sure they also have food/water like the adults.

    Return the deli cup to the breeding container and let it fill with eggs again. You'd think I'd instruct you to move the pinheads to the rearing container now, but you're wrong! I tricked you. It just became the rearing container and now when you get your second batch of eggs, the unused container will be the new incubation chamber.

    Repeat the process, though I can tell you it's not as fast as it sounds. It's really easy to do, but you'd have to do it on a large scale to make it worth it. Unless you only had a couple mouths to feed.
    -J.B.
    http://www.iherp.com/jfreels
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    "STOP ANTHROPOMORPHIZING YOUR ANIMALS." - WesleyTF

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  4. #3
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    That makes sense to me! Any ideas on general temps? I'm mostly curious if crickets would do any good for my dad and I when we fish next year. Water was too high and fast on the river this year, we have mixed results with worms and stink baits, and I heard some people do good with crickets as bait.
    Although, tokay, leopard, panther and maybe a few other gecko species are on the list to get.

  5. #4
    Registered User jfreels's Avatar
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    I have a friend that would use them for fishing. He said they work great for pan fish.

    My reptile room is 80-82, that temp worked very well. I know if they get too cold, they won't reproduce and they probably shouldn't be over 90. Also, make sure the tubs are not clear. They like the dark. You could probably make the generalized statement that if you hear them chirping, then it's warm enough for them to breed.

    Good luck, I found that it wasn't worth it. Though I was doing it on a rather small scale and I didn't have the patience to get the colony going so I'd always have feeders. Reading things online, it made it sound like 4-6 weeks is all you needed to get enough feeders. 4-6 weeks is about how long it takes to get pinheads. Another 4-6 weeks and maybe you'll have mediums.

    I'm being patient with the roaches though.
    -J.B.
    http://www.iherp.com/jfreels
    Technology & Reptile mashup blog
    YouTube Channel
    "STOP ANTHROPOMORPHIZING YOUR ANIMALS." - WesleyTF

  6. #5
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    Re: How to set up a breeding colony of crickets?

    info is mostly right...

    egg box, use something you can lock a lid on. I used chinese food containers (plastic dish with plastic lid)

    eco earth works but so does wet sand. Eco earth has a tendency to mold sometimes. So keep an eye on it.

    temps to speed up growth should be in the low to mid 90's. So eggs and young crickets will be good in the 90's. After that you want them in the 75-85 to slow their growth. They have roughly a 6-8 week life cycle. So keep that in mind. Once the egg hatches, humidity is your enemy. You want 55% humidity tops.

    From deposit to hatch if kept at 92, incubation should be roughly 10 days.

    300 females crickets will bombard the egg nest. This will result in an over abundance of pin heads and they will eat the unhatched eggs which will lower your output. For that amount you will either need multiple nests or less females. I ran 50-100 females in a tub. Small chinese food container with eco earth in it. I cycled my egg box in the cricket cage for 7-10 days. Pull the egg box and put the lid on it. At 7 days+, each day look at your egg box. Look for little fleas in it moving around. If you see pin heads, put them in a new tub and then remove the egg box lid. Add food and egg cartons. The pin heads will leave the nest in search of food. At day 13, it should be safe to remove the nest box and start over.

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  8. #6
    Registered User AkHerps's Avatar
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    Re: How to set up a breeding colony of crickets?

    I gave up my second time around also. The first time I got a couple thousand, the second time, barely any. Roaches are too easy to breed and its a great way to save money!

  9. #7
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    Definitely interesting. Thanks everyone.

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