I think the crickets must eat their own eggs, and pinhead crickets, they are predators afterall, and often nibble each other
i found that wetting the substrate in the cricket container is an invitation for mould to develop and usually the moisture just kills them off
i read on a website somewhere (i dont have the url right now) a neat way to collect the eggs;
this guy on the website puts some mesh over one of those plant pot trays (which is full of substrate) and cellotapes it down, he then keeps the substrate inside the plant pot try moist all the time, and this induces the female crickets to lay thier eggs on it, and cos they push thier ovipositor through the mesh you dont get any frass in the plant pot tray and amongst the eggs, after a few weeks you take it out, take the tape and mesh off and you should have eggs in there
i havnt tried it myself, as its much cheaper just to buy micro crickets than raise them and keep the little ones separate from the big ones, i just buy one lot of micro crickets when my mantids are small, and as the mantis grows so do the crickets so they are always the appropriate size, i've never had a shortage that way, infact i have to throw out crickets as they grow bigger and take up too much space!
if you find them stinky you should try those cricket food cubes, thier great, smell a bit orangy and have that jellified water in them, they seem a bit expensive, but they last for quite a while, i also feed my crickets green leaves along side that, try to avoid things like fruit and potatoe, as they gather mould quickly
