What do Pinhead crickets eat?

[kamakiri]

Nah, I have FF cultures for the nyphs. Really got the pinheads to mix up the diet and to turn those pinheads into adults. Various sized crickets are great for my various sized mantids.

I try do the same thing, but buy pinheads by the 1,000 lot. But of course, you may not be a Mantis SlumLord yet! At least that's what my wife calls me!

I only mean that raising 100 pinheads thru adulthood won't last that long unless you only have two or three mantises. Like Phil says above, you are also trying to prevent them from eating each other too.

 

[tonyi]

I used to breed crickets when I had Fire-bellied Toads. But that was 14 years ago, a bit hard to remember exactly how I did it. I do recall, however, that the enclosure I used was a 10 gal plexiglass tank with a mesh lid. I had sand as substrate (easy to scoop out when dirty, little risk of those buggers hiding in it) and sheets of cardboard to provide them with something to hide behind. I fed them chicken food and used a wet sponge to supply them with water. I never sprayed their enclosure, it was completely dry. That worked for me. The older ones get pretty nasty when they grow into full size though.

 

[lectricblueyes]

My 100 pinheads is looking more like 75 pinheads. In the past week they have grown very slightly.

I'm using a bed of dry oatmeal as my substrate and I have mixed feelings about this. I don't know if they eat the oatmeal or not. I have no idea and it's not going to be pretty when I clean it up because the color of the oatmeal closely matches the color of the pinheads. If they have food/water and they are just pinheads, why use a substrate at all? heck, I'd rater just put a black piece of paper on the bottom and glue that down so I can very clearly see them against the black surface. Now, when I get adults I'll move them into another tank I have setup with black soil so they can lay eggs.

Tomatoes = not a good idea. I dices up some tomatoes and have found that it kills them. It's too watery and they get stuck in the goo of the tomatoes.

Ground up Dog Food = Eh, they don't SEEM to eat it much. It just sits in a tiny pile in the corner.

Carrots = The best so far. They all crowd the carrot pieces. The cool thing is I can take out the carrot sticks, shake the pinheads off of it and soak it in water to re-expand the carrot sticks and use them over again. They also last a long time both in cricket tank and in the fridge. I bought those carrots about 3 weeks ago and they look the same. All I do is skin them, cut them into long, thin sticks and poof, done! I pull the sticks out every other day and soak them in water for 30 minutes until they look bloated again. (warm water works better). After doing this 2 times, they do appear to discolor and at that point, I just throw them out and put in new ones. This is cheap, easy, and so far I find it to be the best way to feed the pinheads.

 

[Rick]

My 100 pinheads is looking more like 75 pinheads. In the past week they have grown very slightly. I'm using a bed of dry oatmeal as my substrate and I have mixed feelings about this. I don't know if they eat the oatmeal or not. I have no idea and it's not going to be pretty when I clean it up because the color of the oatmeal closely matches the color of the pinheads. If they have food/water and they are just pinheads, why use a substrate at all? heck, I'd rater just put a black piece of paper on the bottom and glue that down so I can very clearly see them against the black surface. Now, when I get adults I'll move them into another tank I have setup with black soil so they can lay eggs.

Tomatoes = not a good idea. I dices up some tomatoes and have found that it kills them. It's too watery and they get stuck in the goo of the tomatoes.

Ground up Dog Food = Eh, they don't SEEM to eat it much. It just sits in a tiny pile in the corner.

Carrots = The best so far. They all crowd the carrot pieces. The cool thing is I can take out the carrot sticks, shake the pinheads off of it and soak it in water to re-expand the carrot sticks and use them over again. They also last a long time both in cricket tank and in the fridge. I bought those carrots about 3 weeks ago and they look the same. All I do is skin them, cut them into long, thin sticks and poof, done! I pull the sticks out every other day and soak them in water for 30 minutes until they look bloated again. (warm water works better). After doing this 2 times, they do appear to discolor and at that point, I just throw them out and put in new ones. This is cheap, easy, and so far I find it to be the best way to feed the pinheads.

Yes they do eat the oatmeal. I don't see why you think you will need to clean the container until they are much bigger. They grow fast. I normally get crickets that are half grown and I usually have several that make it to old age if I don't use them up. I have never had to really clean the enclosure anymore than once in their entire lifetimes.

If you want to breed you don't need to have an enclosure full of dirt. You can keep the same setup just add a container of dirt that they can climb into. The females will lay eggs in the container and then you can remove the container and put it under a low wattage heat lamp for hatching in a dedicated pinhead enclosure instead of having it hatch in the same enclosure as the adults.

I normally don't buy pinhead crickets because fruit flies make a much better food for small mantids. Pinheads are a pain and when used for mantids they stay near the bottom and usually hide out where the mantis cannot get to them