Nasty crickets

[Fireborn]

I'm getting so tired of cleaning my nasty cricket bins all the time! Anyone ever make their cricket bin bioactive?

 

[Beelinn]

Commenting to follow... I hate the crickets. . They require more work than the dang lizards!

 

[drj5600]

following too!!

 

[Fireborn]

If no one has tried maybe it's a time for firsts?

 

[nightanole]

I just buy the 12x12 egg carton stuff in bulk, and have at least 2 full screen sides on the bin. I dont have U peoples problems.

I think the key is keeping the frass dry and falling on the bottom of the bin, and keeping the wet load elevated.

Of course you could just switch to red runners

 

[jamest0o0]

I made a post about making a bioactive cricket bin for breeding them a few weeks ago. Once I move I'm doing this, I've seen it done before
Likely not practical for a large scale operation, but for adding crickets for variety, it would work well(I think).

Honestly I don't find cleaning that hard, once I'm out of crickets I dump it all out and spray with soap/vinegar. Let it soak and then rinse it all out. Good as new! Plus I never ever get any smell from my crickets. Their cardboard egg flats is all my bins smell like.

I do as nightanole mentioned, I put food on top of the cage and everything else falls to the bottom and stays dry.

 

[jamest0o0]

I keep my snails, hissers, chams, etc all bioactive... the snails are the most dirty, but the springs and isopods still swarm enough to keep the soil fresh.

My hissers cage is exploding with lesser mealworms, cleaner beetles, isos, and springs. I can put a whole orange in there and the clean up crew alone erases it within days.

 

[Fireborn]

I thought about trying it with my breeder bin but I don't think it be easy picking out pin heads for my babies. It be nice to set up my feeder bin if it helped keep it cleaner. It was a lot easier when I had just a few reptiles but now that I have way more mouths it's a daily chore. Oh how I wish roaches were legal in Canada.

 

[jamest0o0]

Ohhh you can't have roaches up there :/? But yeah I was thinking the same thing, but I only have 3 chams(3 more coming within next two months). I plan to use roaches as a staple with just the crickets for variety. And yeah it'd be a huge pain in the ass picking pinhead out of a bio bin.

 

[Fireborn]

we have some pretty strict insect laws here. No fun insects aloud lol.

 

[jamest0o0]

Strange, why would a tropical roach be illegal lol

 

[Fireborn]

I felt the same way about giant African land snails. Like how would they survive our winter? But I'm not the law maker so I don't know their reasoning.

 

[Scottsquatch]

I am going to keep several bins in rotation for crickets. The oldest will have trays of dirt placed in them for two weeks and then the trays will be moved to an empty bin to hatch. Dirt comes out egg crates go in. I will rotate dirt trays into the next bin 2 weeks later. I will rotate 3 or 4 bins through this cycle. Every time I put new trays of dirt in, it will be in the oldest bin. If I have extras I can give some away or skip a cycle till I use the surplus or give them away. I read an article that says to keep some vermiculite in the bottom of the bins to keep moisture and odor under control. Ill report back and let people know how it works. I won't be starting this up for a couple more weeks yet.

 

[JacksJill]

I think in Canada all insects are guilty until proven innocent. Considering what's going on in Florida, the Everglades, not the hurricane, maybe that's not a bad idea.