More on Crickets

[Nicola Dolby]

I decided last week to set up a cricket farm. I got the container with good ventilation, dry soil and a small water bowl. I put the green/brown crickets in with some lettuce and slices of apple. So far they've buried the water bowl and half of them are dead. Could anyone tell me where I'm going wrong? I keep them at 24-27 degrees and in a dry container.

[matthew spooner]

you would probably be better off with damp soil. this is where they lay their eggs. when i keep stocks of crickets, i keep damp soil in the bottom, water bowl and lots of shelters, egg boxes are ideal and i also keep kitchen roll middles in their as they crawl inside them so it makes it easier for feeding Ts as you can just tap the cardboard tube into the tank and they will drop out. i feed them goldfish flakes

[Nicola Dolby]

Thanks matthew,
They've got their egg boxes and water, the food tomorrow or Tuesday.
All the best!
Oh by the way, I used to have some Palid roaches but the local 8 legs had them. Should I keep these the same way, when I get some more?
best wishes

[matthew spooner]

ye, if you do it right you should have a never ending supply of food

[Colin D Wilson]

Nicola,

As matt said damp soil is best, also some bits of old tree bark will spark the laying process for the more awquard females.

From personal experience I would only feed........
bran in a dish (wet so they get water)
Lettuce and Kale.
cheap fish food (flakes, koi pellets etc are good for protien)

I have fed apple, tomatoes, cucumber and the citrus fruits in the past with the same results as you have experienced...half died.

[Stuart Common]

noticed mine always seem to like a few slices of carrots as well, goes down a treat

[Peter Roach]

Seems like everyone has their own way of breeding crix.

I kept mine in a large plastic container (approx 21in X 16in x 14in) on a dry substrate of porridge oats or bran at at warm room temp (my shed actually ... temp averages 80F) Food was fishflake, pond pellets, bran and porridge oats. Moisture was from apples, oranges, carrots and a small shallow water container (peanut butter lid) which was cleaned and refilled daily.
I filled a hole-less cricket container almost to the top with damp eco-earth (peat didnt work too well for me ! ... Too acidic ?) for the adults to laid the eggs in, I left the egg laying box in with the few hundred plus adults (minimum 2-300 usually at least 1000) for about 3 days then placed the egg filled cricket box (with lid on) into an incubator set at 82F. I had tens of thousands of pinhead hatch out but there is an extremely high mortility rate.
The secret of keeping pinheads alive is a highish temp and very high humidity, so I kept them in the incubator for a week or two until i used them up. (I was breeding small geckos and keeping dart frogs at the time so needed lots and lots of 'em). I gave up in the end as it was way to much messing around to save a few ££'s. It was definately a very labour intensive job to raise a few crickets, i only did it because I needed an extremely high number of pinheads daily but I would say it is definately NOT worth the bother.

Pic of my old livefood rack, egg laying box can been seen in 2nd from bottom cantainer

[Nicola Dolby]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'm pretty sure where I'm going now, though how I'll see cricket eggs so I can put them in an incubator, that'll be fun! Thanks again.

[Tom Forman]

well I have only been breeding crickets for a year but I have been very successful in that time.

I got so many crickets this year I have come to the conclusion I only need 10 female crickets and I only need to breed them for 2 weeks a year to get all the crickets i need (around 1000) for the whole year...

I haven't had a single cricket death in several months now as far as I can tell.

xept for a few drownee pinheads in water droplets, stupid little buggers.

I reckon your high mortality rate could be due to the wrong food. You should ideally be feeding dog food. Avoid cheap dog food, it usually contains colourings. I have had the best results with Iams dog food.
That should be their staple diet.

On top of this I give them weetabix and oats.

And about once a week they get a little slice of carrot or potato and lettuce.

I would not really recommend a damp substrate like others have suggested, I used to keep them on a damp substrate and although I wasn't feeding Iams at the time I did get deaths until some1 told me this was most likely due to the high humidity.

I since keep them pretty dry and they are all doing great.

They get their moisture from the egg laying tray (which should be filled with damp soil), a water bowl and the carrot you provide occasionally.

The pinheads you have to treat exactly opposite, keeping them as humid as possible without avoiding too much condensation that they start drowning in water droplets.

PS: the eggs are easier to spot than you'd think, they are about half the size of a grain of rice and it looks like the crickets shove a few hundred of these yellow rice grains into the soil. Moving the soil about helps spot them if you only have a few.

PPS: Colin, wet bran? I think bran is the same as weetabix but I have enough difficulty keeping mine mould free as it is. One day of soggy bran and I'd have mould growing all over it. I am very happy that I can leave my crickets unattended for a week, I couldn't do that with wet bran I can tell you.

[Tom Forman]

have a look at this site for very detailed and great instructions on breeding:

http://skylab.org/~chugga/cricket/

it even has some pictures of some eggs

[Stuart Common]

I must admit, it sounds like some of these crickets are better fed then me lol , lots of good info though, think I'll need to give it a go sometime soon

[Colin D Wilson]

PPS: Colin, wet bran? I think bran is the same as weetabix but I have enough difficulty keeping mine mould free as it is. One day of soggy bran and I'd have mould growing all over it. I am very happy that I can leave my crickets unattended for a week, I couldn't do that with wet bran I can tell you.

I should have elaborated a little more really,
The bran i used was packeted bran, not the brekie cereal type.
Its high in protein, starch, dietary minerals and protiens and has a high fibre content.
It was mixed so it was fairly saturated, it provided the nutients and a good percentage of water needed.
Indeed the bran would start to mould over a period of a day or two and in reallity most omnivorous insects tend to include mould (spores) as a fair percentage of their diet as the antibiotic nature of some specific attributes of the mould helps in maintaining a healthy digestive system

[Tom Forman]

cheers Colin,
I wish I could give you some more reputation but it won't let me

You tend to monitor instead of give input but when you do, it's spot on.

Like the tip about the honey one male cricket wings to stop em chirping, great advice.

[Nicola Dolby]

Can I just say a big thank you to everyone who helped me. This morning there were only nine crickets left but they went for the fish flakes like they were nectar! What I got them was "Aquarian goldfish flake food" which comes in red and yellow flakes. They only seem to like the red flakes but they're munching happily!
Thanks again.

[Colin D Wilson]

cheers Colin,
I wish I could give you some more reputation but it won't let me

You tend to monitor instead of give input but when you do, it's spot on.

Like the tip about the honey one male cricket wings to stop em chirping, great advice.

Thanks for that mate,

I try to run on experience, not hearsay and speculation
Makes it worthwhile for me to have comments like that posted.

Colin