Crickets

[jfreels]

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.

[bad-one]

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.

[Jay_Bunny]

They all died and never produced anything. They had water, food, and it was in the mid to high 70s in the room.

[PurplePython]

They all died and never produced anything. They had water, food, and it was in the mid to high 70s in the room.

dang.... that kind of makes me think I will fail also

how how does it usually take for them to sex, lay eggs, then for the eggs to hatch all-together? (just so I have an idea of when to be expecting the babies if they ever come)

[redstormlax12]

At six to seven weeks old the adults will mate and the females will lay. Once the eggs are laid it takes between 3-7 days to hatch depending on the environment. I think the eggs should be incubated at 93 degrees. In my opinion, crickets are really finicky insects and are a pain to breed.

[jfreels]

You'll have eggs after about 5-7 days which will need to incubate. You can see the eggs, they are about 1-2 inches down in the soil. You'll have to make sure you spray that soild to keep it damp. If it dries, the eggs will die.

Put the top (this will keep moisture in) on the breeder container and put it in a warm spot. Generally within 2 weeks it should be swarming with pinheads. Be sure to put another breeder container in with the breeding colony so you can keep it going.

It's easy, just remember, the colder it is, the slower the cycle is. You can speed it up by putting the breeding colony on top of a heating pad as well as the incubating breeding container.

[PurplePython]

You'll have eggs after about 5-7 days which will need to incubate. You can see the eggs, they are about 1-2 inches down in the soil. You'll have to make sure you spray that soild to keep it damp. If it dries, the eggs will die.

Put the top (this will keep moisture in) on the breeder container and put it in a warm spot. Generally within 2 weeks it should be swarming with pinheads. Be sure to put another breeder container in with the breeding colony so you can keep it going.

It's easy, just remember, the colder it is, the slower the cycle is. You can speed it up by putting the breeding colony on top of a heating pad as well as the incubating breeding container.

lol.. well thanks for explaining it to me but thats way too much work for some stupid crickets. I am just going to leave them how they are and if pinheads pop up sometime soon, I will seperate them into a new container using my handy 6 inch tweezers

[suzuki4life]

They all died and never produced anything. They had water, food, and it was in the mid to high 70s in the room.

crickets only have a total life cycle of 6-8 weeks...

[suzuki4life]

a good nesting box is to use a chinese food foil bottom with plastic lid container and eco earth....

to make a nesting box:
make the eco earth to spec and add it to the food container.....put it in with your chirping crickets (it works best if you make little paper or cardboard ramps so the crickets can get in the container easier)


Put the container with eco earth in with the crickets for a week...then remove it and put the lid on....

if you want multiple batches...keep adding nesting boxes.....

now find a heat source....

I keep mine behind my large LCD TV....

I have heard of people placing them on or near room lamps, computers...any place their is heat....just be careful not to block anythign off and create a fire hazard...use common sense.


keep the babies in the container until you can see them in it moving around....then just place them in another container(aquarium)

you can reuse the food container and dirt for the next round of eggs now....I would recommend remoistening it first though.