Breeding Crickets

[Richard Goram]

I now have 18 tarantulas, a mixture of spiderlings, juveniles and adults, and I was thinking of breeding my own crickets. Here is how I was going to do it:
A large plastic tub with a large portion of the lid cut out and replaced with fine mesh for ventilation, with lots of egg cartons inside, with an area of moist peat for egg laying and some bowls of wet and dry food.

Any more suggestions or advice from people with experience of breeding their own crickets would be greatly appreciated.

[Adam Smith]

from what method you have described i think you have everything on the right track, although i read in a book that vermiculite be used for them to lay eggs but then it depends on the authors preference as many people have different views but what you have said should be fine

[Mark Pennell]

I now have 18 tarantulas, a mixture of spiderlings, juveniles and adults, and I was thinking of breeding my own crickets. Here is how I was going to do it:
A large plastic tub with a large portion of the lid cut out and replaced with fine mesh for ventilation, with lots of egg cartons inside, with an area of moist peat for egg laying and some bowls of wet and dry food.

Any more suggestions or advice from people with experience of breeding their own crickets would be greatly appreciated.

Richard
My advice is not to bother trying to breed your own crickets, you will quickly find that this is very time consuming and will end up being a rather smelly chore.

You tarantulas will actually end up getting less attention too. However it looks like you have most things in place to start off.

I do suggest that you use a flat bowl of damp sand in one corner and the rest as utilitarian as possible. The crickets will deposit eggs in the sand and this can be removed and put into a more escape proof container.

Cheers
Mark

[J M Clegg]

Richard - I agree with Mark entirely. It's a timely exercise and when you consider how much it costs to buy a tub of crickets not very efficient either.

Why not consider Cockroaches instead? I now have 3 colonies going, Orange Head, Deathshead and Lobster. They took a few months to get going but are now actively breeding. I am not farming them, as I want to establish good sustainable colonies that make crickets obsolete for us. However even with a small colony you have different sizes of roaches (nymph through to adult) that will feed all spiders (slings through to adult).

They make interesting charges to keep in their own right anyway and still deliver a high protein food source. Plus, if you vary the diet of the roaches with fresh vegitable matter and protien such as dog biscuits, you know your spiders are getting exactly the same via the food chain.

I bought a small colony of lobster roaches from a BTS member (I think it was Richard Gallon - but don't quote me on that) and they were not expensive somewhere between £5 and £10. Once they start Lobsters breed like hell, but a down side is they climb. Orange and Deathsheads are slower to get going but much easier to work with as they dont climb.

Once our colonies are established this year, we are going to re-start an experiment with growth rates in spiderlings using gut fed and non gut fed roaches. Many spiders have venom that is useful in medicine and we want to see if using a gut fed method accelerates growth rates in spiders and therefore accelerates venom yields. I am sure it will make interesting findings.

Best regards

Jay.

[Nicola Dolby]

breeding crickets

If you want to breed bugs which your tarantulas will love eating and you're not bothered if they get smelly, try cockroaches. They can be wierd creatures, depending on the species you get. Also to cut down on the smell feed your crickets crushed bran flakes. Thats what my local pet shop does and it works fine, but make sure they get an additional water supply as well.

[Ray Gabriel]

If you want to breed bugs which your tarantulas will love eating and you're not bothered if they get smelly, try cockroaches. They can be wierd creatures, depending on the species you get. Also to cut down on the smell feed your crickets crushed bran flakes. Thats what my local pet shop does and it works fine, but make sure they get an additional water supply as well.

Hi Nicola,

they use bran as it it is very cheap in that form and adds weight to the container thinking you are buying more than you are. It also stops the crickets nibbling on each other.

As for breeding crickets, as Mark said to time consuming, but you can get the female crickets (blacks) to lay eggs which will hatch so you have your own supply of "cricketlings" to feed your spiderlings.

Or as others have said go for roaches, i think Richard Gallon is/was selling starter
colonies.

OR my spider food of choice maggots bought from fishing tackle shops by the 1/4 , 1/2, pint are very safe to feed as they will not bite your spiders have no leg spines (as they have no legs), last for a long time in the fridge (in maggot boxes) and are cheap.

Ray

[LanceHutchings]

I agree with Ray on using maggots .. high protein and also a good source of liquid for the spiders.. as you would know if you had been trying to put on a hook while fishing and it burst all over you

Just one thing to add to that though, buy the white maggots not the pretty coloured ones .. these have been dyed and although I doubt it would be harmful to the spider why take the chance !!

Oh just one more .. if you put maggots in with arboreals the ones they dont eat usually burrow into the substrate .. then hatch out later as flies which the arboreals seem to enjoy catching/eating


Lance

[Richard Goram]

Wouldn't maggots be too small for adult tarantulas though? I may well use them to vary the diet of some of the spiderlings and juveniles though.

As for cockroach colonies, do they need to be kept in the same way as a cricket colony in terms of food and places to lay eggs/hide etc?
Also, do they get to a bigger size? This would be good for my T.blondi and L.parahybana for example.
Lastly, is it difficult to balance harvesting enough out of the colony to feed your tarantulas and leaving enough in to breed and perpetuate the colony?

[LanceHutchings]

Richard

For feeding the larger breeds of spider ie Goliaths and Salmon pinks etc i used to use Dr. Bob Bustards method of Beef Heart.

You can buy it cheap from a butchers and cube it about an inch or two square depending on size of spider, present it on a plastic sheet so it doesnt get covered in substrate ... used to fatten them up nicely and quickly .. just remove it as soon as the spider has finished eating or if it doesnt eat it ... has a tendency to smell quite badly after a while !!

The lack of movement doesnt seem to worry the spider although you have to leave it in a little longer than usual for the spider to find

Lance