# Cricket breeding..



## MantisSouth (Sep 25, 2005)

Do you breed your crickets? Or just buy them when needed? If you breed them, what do you use as substrate for the tank?


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## Geckospot (Sep 26, 2005)

I usually buy my crickets but have bred them in the past. They are more difficult to breed than many other feeder insects.

First you will need 1000 or more 3/4" to adult crickets. Do not use any substrate in the cricket tub. This makes it easier to wipe out the dead bodies (crickets die easily). Give them egg crate or cardboard to climb on. Feed them well with veggies and cricket food. I use non-medicated chick feed. A 50 lb bag costs like $9 at your local feed store.

Fill a gladware/ziplock sandwich container with a 50/50 mix of damp playsand and topsoil or damp playsand and vermiculite. Cut a piece of aluminum window screen to the size of the sandwich container. Place this right on top of the sand/soil mix. This will keep the crix from flinging the mix all over the enclosure. The females will stick their ovidepositor through the mesh and lay the eggs in the soil. Leave the container in the enclosure for 3-4 days and then remove it and replace it with a new egg laying container. Place the sandwich container in a warm place or in a tub with a heating pad. The eggs should hatch in 2-4 weeks depending on the temperature. Hundreds of "dust" sized crickets will climb out of the container and begin eating. Feed them veggies and grain products. I like to feed them the powder from the bottom of the chick food bag. They will take a few months to reach adult size. Repeat the procedure to breed the next generation.

www.Geckospot.com


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## Rick (Sep 26, 2005)

I do. They are VERY easy to breed. I just get a dish about an inch deep and fill it full of bed a beast which is ground up cocunut fibers. Anything will work though including dirt. I keep the dish moist and put it in with my crickets. You don' t need 1,00 crickets. The dish I use has slightly curved sides that keep them from making a mess. I leave it in there about a week and then take it out. Then I put the dish in another container with a 50 watt heat light above it. I keep the substrate moist. In about a week I have thousands of pinheads.


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## ellroy (Sep 26, 2005)

I have bred black crickets in the past and they were very easy. I just bought a tub of adults and put them in fish tank with egg boxes and pots of damp sand. I just put in a few greens for them to munch on. Then every few days I would take out the sand pots, covered them over to keep the humidity up and then put them in the airing cupboard. In a few weeks I had hundreds of little pinheads.

Just make sure the crickets can climb up to the sand (some sticks or lean the egg boxes against them) and they will do their bit!


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## garbonzo13 (Sep 26, 2005)

Are there any REALLY SILENT crickets. I want to start breeding them, but my wife has a childhood fear of their chirping sound :roll: (don't ask me why). Crickets sound easier than mealworms :wink: .


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## infinity (Sep 26, 2005)

just wondering... with mantids- we all buy the L1 nymphs etc and we can get them through to adulthood with minimal losses... why hasn't the same been achieved for crickets? - with me and it seems with lots of other people- they get really high losses...


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## Samzo (Sep 26, 2005)

i only found that the black crickets died for some reason, i never get loses with brown but I do have a huge cricket box thing so maybe if they have space they wont die ...


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## Ian (Sep 26, 2005)

I had great success with my crix I bred this month, got about 2000 mediums (that were all eaten within a week or so). I find if they are kept really dry, they do well, any sign of moisture kills em off.

Cheers,

Ian


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