Crickets procreating

[Nylah712]

Hi so I’ve been having an issue with my crickets. I don’t breed them and usually buy 50crickets each week for my adult male chameleon. Recently I’ve been seeing tiny cricket larvae in the cricket cage. I’ve also seen dead ones in my cham’s cage(I’ve cleaned them out of course). Is their anyway for them to stop reproducing?

 

[JacksJill]

“Life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously.” Jurassic Park

 

[Rst_Cham]

Hi so I’ve been having an issue with my crickets. I don’t breed them and usually buy 50crickets each week for my adult male chameleon. Recently I’ve been seeing tiny cricket larvae in the cricket cage. I’ve also seen dead ones in my cham’s cage(I’ve cleaned them out of course). Is their anyway for them to stop reproducing?

Do you have substrate in your cricket bin? I'm breeding crickets and it takes moist soil/substrate for them to lay eggs in,and heat for them to hatch. How hot is your cricket bin? Are you seeing actual larvae? I'm asking because crickets don't go through a larval stage, they hatch as tiny pin head crickets.

 

[snitz427]

“Life will not be contained. Life breaks free. It expands to new territories, crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously.” Jurassic Park

I even read it in jeffs voice before even realizing it was a movie quote of his LOL

 

[snitz427]

You should be happy! Feed them a few weeks and you dont need to keep buying them! Otherwise slightly cooler temps can slow them down, but they burrow their eggs in soil

 

[Nylah712]

I don’t have any substrate in my cricket bin. As for temperature the bin is in a garage which is rarely cool but maybe during this time of year I could see how it could get warm. I can’t tell you the exact temperature but in the 60-70 range. The “larvae” look like oval eggs. A picture below.

 

[snitz427]

Lol lucky! I have breeding bins set up and right now they are refusing to mate lol

 

[Nylah712]

You should be happy! Feed them a few weeks and you dont need to keep buying them! Otherwise slightly cooler temps can slow them down, but they burrow their eggs in soil

The only issue is that I don’t want to go through the hassle of breeding them since I really only need a few each week. I see how it could be a blessing but, I wouldn't know how to take care of them.

 

[Rst_Cham]

So cricket eggs usually need between 80-90 degrees to hatch, I have mine around 85.
Those in your photo kinda look like fly pupae. Newly hatched pin head crickets are tiny black miniature crickets.

 

[Nylah712]

Fly pupae? Hmm... that might be a bigger problem. Do you know how to get rid of them? Or how they would’ve even got there?

 

[Rst_Cham]

Crickets eggs are white and look like little grains of rice, here's a photo.

 

[Nylah712]

Could those hurt my Cham in anyway?

 

[Nylah712]

The fly pupae? How would I get rid of them?

 

[Rst_Cham]

Do you have a better photo of them?

 

[Nylah712]

I don’t since I’m not home at the moment.

 

[Rst_Cham]

I can't tell scale from the photo but they maybe look like fruit fly pupae. Any fruit flies around?

 

[Nylah712]

yes we have fruit flies

 

[Rst_Cham]

Any other kind of flies around? I just can't tell from photo.

 

[Rst_Cham]

Do they look like attached photos? Here's an article the deals in part with controlling fruit flies if that's what they are:
https://entomology.ca.uky.edu/ef621

 

[Nylah712]

yes they do look like that! Thank you for your help!