breeding and feeding feeder crickets?

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chinese_FR3AK said:
is breeding crickets possible if it is how? and what should I feed my feeder crickets so that they are good for my mantis.
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Unless you have no way of smelling anything. I wouldnt breed them. They stink really really really (ou get my point) BAD! Its cheaper to just buy bulk and keep them. Feed them veggies.

 
I have found breeding crickets very easy. I don't even intentionally do it and it has been over a year since I purchased any store crickets. Actually, it is probably about time for me to get some store ones to bring back in some fresh blood to my lines. I also have had no problem with smell and my crickets live in a twenty gallon tank in my room. The trick to it is not overcrowding your cage and keeping it clean.

There was some great info in this thread that popped up a while ago. Might want to give it a read- http://mantidforum.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8436

 
Keep crickets enclosure clean and they don't smell. Unless you get into some huge breeding operation the smell is not a factor. I find it is just easier to buy in bulk but breeding is easy. I put a dish of moist eco earth into the adults enclosure. They will lay eggs in it. A few days later I remove it and put a 50W red bulb over it in one of those round silver fixtures and before you know it you have pinheads!

 
The bulb Rick mentions is pretty important if you don't keep your house in the mid 80s (I just use a 60watt incandescent on 14hrs a day but a 50watt red bulb should work the same). Breeding crickets is really helpful for rearing mantids since you can have various sizes available as needed. Of course if you raise a ton of mantids you may need to set up more than one cricket rearing cage. I use beneful puppy dog food as their only food since a $14 bag can feed three decent cricket cultures for five years. One nice aspect of breeding your crickets is not getting the host of pests that accompany cricket boxes. Crickets go through generations very fast which makes it possible to select for certain traits. Mine are just normal feeder crickets but the adults are black and twice the size of a pet shop cricket (took maybe ten years and thirty generations but it's something fun to do since I'm keeping and feeding them off anyway). Here's a pic I posted in 05 http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/attachment...mp;d=1134918836

 
Yep. Without the heat the cricket eggs take forever to hatch. I often get little crickets in my box turtle enclosures from crickets that escape the turtles and hide out.

 
How fast do the crickets hatch with the light and warmth? Mine just hatch out on there own, but I don't make any extra attempts at breeding and rearing crickets it just happens because my tank set up, happens to support it.

 
Krissim Klaw said:
How fast do the crickets hatch with the light and warmth? Mine just hatch out on there own, but I don't make any extra attempts at breeding and rearing crickets it just happens because my tank set up, happens to support it.
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I have to give them the right conditions because my enclosures are not set up for egg laying. I have not done it in awhile but I recall with the proper temps they hatch within a week.

 
Wow that is much faster. I think just left alone I would usually start getting babies 5-8 weeks after getting a fresh batch of crickets. Nice to know if I ever want to get some little crickets fast I can use the light to make them develop at such a quick rate.

 
My adult crickets laid some eggs in the eco earth stuff but now I dont see the eggs or any pinheads. Is it possible the adult crickets ate their own eggs or have already eaten the pinheads within like a day even though they have cricket food and bread available?

 
I've read that other crickets will dig up the eggs and eat them. So, as soon as you see them, it's best to remove them.

 
I thought my female crickets laid fertile eggs, cause there there males in there as well. I guess I didn't keep them hot enough, becuase they never hatched. :(

 
It has to be very humid substrate at all times, is that where u went wrong as i was able to breed them but stoped coz it stunk <_<

 
Its so easy you can do it by mistake... I got tired of buying crickets for my brother's scorpions, so I decided what the heck and threw in 2 dozen into each tank along with some dog food to keep them alive for a while. They eventually diminish as the stupid things venture one by one down into the cave of no return. However, I took a peek the other day and now I have about 2000 pinheads running around the tanks. They are not ot very easy to catch though, cuz when you stick your hand in, it becomes a storm of tiny little crazy crickets jumping everywhere but where you want them to.

 
I'm wondering how you can successfully keep up the breeding rates if you remove the laying container everytime it has a few visible eggs on top....because then there are more than 1 cricket laying eggs and they each lay 100 eggs so how do you know how many eggs the cricks have lain, and then even if you put in another fresh laying substrate container, as soon as you see some eggs in it you will want to remove it and you'll never get a decent amount of pinheads as far as I can tell. How should I do this so it's easier/more convenient/faster?

Also, in one of my laying substrate containers I now see white hairy mold on what appears to be the eggs. Guess I kept it too humid and moist?

 
yeah I had read that article before I started trying, and he does instruct you to remove the breeding dish after you're sure eggs have been lain, but he doesn't actually say whether or not if crickets will eat their eggs, and he doesn't say what to do to keep a fresh breeding dish around at all times, but I guess I can scoop the dirt with eggs out and into a separate container and refill the dish each time, like once every few days, placing it back into the adult container.

 

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