Breeding crickets

[dgerndt]

My adult Chinese mantis recently died, right after I restocked on large crickets. Now I don't have a mantis large enough to eat these gross giant crickets as my only other adult mantis is an Egyptian and the crickets are almost the same size as her! But I had the great idea to breed these nasty large crickets so I can get some pinheads for my little Chinese nymph who will soon be growing out of fruitflies.

I read some older posts about breeding crickets and I came to the conclusion that this is how to do it:

Put a bunch of large crickets in a tub with oatmeal as a subrate and some dogfood to keep them fed. Have a smaller container with moist soil for them to lay their eggs in, then remove the small container and put it under a low watt heat lamp, keeping it moist. A few weeks later, baby crickets will emerge and will be ready to gut load and then become dinner for my dear mantids.

So my question is: Can anyone give me some more specific measurements such as amount of crickets, size of conatiner, and how many baby crickets there will be? Any other tips and personal experience is very appreciated!

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

Ugh...I hate crickets, but I did used to breed them. First, find some kind of rubbermaid tub. A 15 or 20 gallon works fine, just make sure it has some hight to it. Toss in some pieces of cardboard, egg flats (Crickets will only climb the brown/gray stuff), and other things for climbing space. You need two dishes for a water source and food. Caps from gatorade bottles are preferred, but if it's large enough anything will work. Dogfood/oats for main source of food. And water crystals for a water source. The crystals I used are often sold for temporary plant substrate. Pretty much little rocks that inflate with water when soaked, a little goes a loonnnggg way. Then the egg-laying site. Any rubbermaid container should do. It should be at least 2 inchs deep. The bigger the better, with more crickets. Keep it moist peat moss or reptile substrate works best. Add brides for the female crickets to find the site. Of course you need the lid. Just cut a hole in the center and super glue screen, preferably wire or metal. Now HEAT is also important. Too hot and they will die, too cold and the same thing will happen. Generally 80+ is accepted well. Remove dead crickets daily. Or else it will smell of rotting dog ###### and the others will gut-load themselves off bacteria. I started from 100 medium to large crickets and bred from there. If you see plenty of egg-laying, remove the egg site within one week. Size of the container is important, too small and if you have too many females, they will dig the eggs up and eat them. Males often wait in there for just that. Incubate eggs WARM. 90 degrees. Mist once to twice a day, always make sure the substrate is damp. They should hatch in 7-10 days. Overall breeding them is not fun, and unless your making a buisness or have dozens of mouths to feed, it's not worth it. Get roaches. Turkistans should be closest to crickets.

 

[dgerndt]

Ew, crickets are so gross. Where can I get roaches and do mantids like those better?

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

Ew, crickets are so gross. Where can I get roaches and do mantids like those better?

Mantids like them just the same, if not better. Of course they aren't a very good choice for say, gongys or ghosts. (My ghosts won't touch my B. dubia roaches) The best place to get roaches would be from other hobbyists. Try arachnoboards, and post in the classifieds. I've seen some killer deals like 1,000 turkistans for $15 shipped. To give you some perspective - Turkistans top out at the size of a full grown cricket, they lakes oothecae, they are very fast, don't burrow, nor climb. Their speed makes would make them irrisistable to some of the aggressive mantids. You can also just google "buy roaches" and you should fine some goos sales.

 

[dgerndt]

Mantids like them just the same, if not better. Of course they aren't a very good choice for say, gongys or ghosts. (My ghosts won't touch my B. dubia roaches) The best place to get roaches would be from other hobbyists. Try arachnoboards, and post in the classifieds. I've seen some killer deals like 1,000 turkistans for $15 shipped. To give you some perspective - Turkistans top out at the size of a full grown cricket, they lakes oothecae, they are very fast, don't burrow, nor climb. Their speed makes would make them irrisistable to some of the aggressive mantids. You can also just google "buy roaches" and you should fine some goos sales.

Wow, thanks for the info! Now it's just up to my mom and if she'll allow roaches in the house. :blink:

 

[Krissim Klaw]

Cricket breeding can be as easy or involved as you want to make it. I've got everything from pinheads to adults in my twenty gallon tank. I don't seperate the babies nor do I fuss with any special lighting or heat. All I do is supply food, water, and a substrate and they breed like, well crickets.

 

[Rick]

Sounds like you read one of my old posts about breeding them. There is no certain size you need on containers. I use medium size rubbermaids for up to 1000 crickets. Obviously the more you have the more eggs that will be laid.

 

[dgerndt]

Well, I guess I'll try breeding the crickets I have leftover and see how it goes. I mean, I don't have any other use for these big crickets.