I thought I saw a post before, but what is the best way to breed crickets?

Psychotic4mb3r

New Member
I thought I saw a post before but I cant find it now.. Well im being lazy at the moment to look for it lol..
But I have two chameleons(little piggys) and a rescued leopard gecko.. And im about to have even more geckos soon! I cant wait! but anyways, I was wondering whats the best way to breed and rais crickets? I figured it will be allot cheaper just breeding them myself rather then having to run to the pest store every few days and buying 15 bucks worth of crickets!
 
You just put a small tray with organic soil or something similar and cover it with screen so the males dont eat the eggs. Than remove them every week or so and put in a new one and move the other one with eggs to a warm dark box and wait to hatch. It isnt really hard its just noisy and dirty.
 
raising crickets is frustrating, however if done properly can yield great results.

Start with about 1k crickets and put them in a big bin.

Keep the container warm and give them a protein diet to induce reproduction.

Fill a tupper ware container with a soil/sand mixture ( or pure soil works )

put the container in the bin and allow it to sit there for a few days, the female crickets will lay eggs eventually. Remove the tupper ware and place it in its own bin. Keep the soil moist, however beware condensation. Also keep it warm.

If done properly, depending on the amount of females in your original 1k you may yield a couple thousand. Assuming there were 50% female of the original 1k and they layed multiple eggs that all hatched.

Raising the crickets will get annoying, as with a colony of that size you will constantly be cleaning. Trust me, even with the few hundred I keep at a time - the smell is horrible. I am forced to keep the container out doors, it would stink up the room its in.

Crickets eat and poop constantly, and with that size..... well for sanitary reasons ( for your chameleons protection of course ) it would be mandatory to clean it at least every other day.

I promote Dubia.

They will not escape as easily as crickets, they won't do the panic jump once you open the bin ( mine is rather shallow ) but best of all they are very clean. The only odor will come from spoiled food. Dubia also keep food and thus nutrients in there systems longer than the eat N poop machine that is the cricket. However it will take a little long to raise a suitable colony that you can continually feed off of. Starting with at least 500 dubia ( 50-80 adult pairs ) would be a good start.

They just need to be kept warm and well fed on a protein diet. Remember that about three days before you start feeding them off you should stop the protein diet. I would simply separate about a weeks worth at a time in a separate container and put them on a more chameleon/gecko friendly diet. This allows the protein to be passed and the new gutload to settle.

Best of luck.
S.F
 
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