Breeding crickets

[RandellTheCham]

i need some info and advice on breeding crickets.

- how often clean
- how often feed
- is room tempature ok
- do i replace egg cartens often
Ect

 

[ZacharyLeesWife]

Imho, crickets are the only feeder that just aren't worth colonizing. It's not difficult to get them reproducing, but they are just too cheap and readily available to justify the hassle. I wouldn't ever buy pet store crix unless it was an emergency because they're expensive, famous for parasites and they're rarely ever gutloaded but there are several sponsors that have cheap and very healthy bugs. Josh's frogs is my favorite for crix and customer service. In a 500ish adult colony, even with 2 cleaning crews it smelled without a good cleaning every other day and a deep scrub every week. The smell is absorbed by the egg crates so they need swapped out weekly, rather than paying more for them I used crumbled craft paper. I kept a dry guyload always available and mixed fruits and veggies in a separate dish for moisture and gutloading. I found that oranges helped with the smell to some degree... Room temperature would be fine, but your crickets will grow and reproduce better with an added underfloor heat source. I would definitely be sure that you start with banded crickets, but they're pretty standard.

 

[RandellTheCham]

Imho, crickets are the only feeder that just aren't worth colonizing. It's not difficult to get them reproducing, but they are just too cheap and readily available to justify the hassle. I wouldn't ever buy pet store crix unless it was an emergency because they're expensive, famous for parasites and they're rarely ever gutloaded but there are several sponsors that have cheap and very healthy bugs. Josh's frogs is my favorite for crix and customer service. In a 500ish adult colony, even with 2 cleaning crews it smelled without a good cleaning every other day and a deep scrub every week. The smell is absorbed by the egg crates so they need swapped out weekly, rather than paying more for them I used crumbled craft paper. I kept a dry guyload always available and mixed fruits and veggies in a separate dish for moisture and gutloading. I found that oranges helped with the smell to some degree... Room temperature would be fine, but your crickets will grow and reproduce better with an added underfloor heat source. I would definitely be sure that you start with banded crickets, but they're pretty standard.

I dont think the site sponsers site from uk pet store crix are always half dead

 

[ZacharyLeesWife]

I dont think the site sponsers site from uk pet store crix are always half dead

I definitely can't help source them across the pond, sorry! I do know what you mean about the pet store crix, I asked the kid at my local store what gutloading they did and he actually said that the egg crate and white potatoes were all that the bugs ate. It's no wonder that the poor herps at that place always look half dead!