Breeding Crickets for your geckos or any other reptile for that matter is a great way to save yourself time and money when you have hungry little or sometimes BIG mouths to feed depending on what you keep/breed.
Being able to produce a variety of sizes of cricket will allow you to offer the appropriately sized prey to your reptiles. If done properly it is clean, dose not smell and is funnily enough, quite rewarding.
My way is simple, cheap and it works.
key factors for successfully breeding crickets:
1. Heat.
2. Food and water.
3. A suitable place to lay the eggs.
Getting started:
First things first, you need a large tub with a tight fitting lid.
you can buy these in the most supermarkets in the laundry/cleaning isle. I don't know if you can get tupaware tubs big enough so i bought and use a clear plastic laundry tub.
Cut a large rectangle on one side of the lid and cut and secure an appropriate sized piece of fly netting or mesh. I initially used a soldering iron to melt the fly netting to the plastic witch would have worked if not for my soldering iron refusing to work and ending up in the trash so i used duct tape on both sides of the lid (yes this will hold, I have never had a single escapee or intruder)
For food i have a shallow square dish, you can use a jar lid etc and for food, a mix of gutload, natural dog biscuits and commercial crickets pellets as i feel its good to give them a balanced and variable diet.
For water i use a small jar lid filled with water crystals as it dose not make a mess and prevents drowning witch crickets are prone to. Why? i don't know, you could have the shallowest dish with a rock in it so they could get out if they fell in and they would still drown every time.
For hides i use the small 6 egg cartons (mainly because the crickets i bought and breed came in a number of small tubs with these inside), you will only need 2-4 of these. The crickets will gather on both sides so don't worry about space. However you can just as easily use 2 regular 12 egg cartons, just depends on what you have.
Now the egg laying chamber. Grab yourself a small tupaware container, cut a small hole in one end, put a decent amount eco earth/ coca fiber in it and moisten it, Put the lid on it and your done.
Just make sure to give it a quick misting every couple of days to prevent substrate from drying out. For heat witch is very important, use a UTH ,heat wire or tape placed under the tub.
Tips and tricks:
1. larger crickets can climb but not very well, make sure dishes or lids used for food and water are shallow, if you cant find shallow ones simply get a small piece of wood, paddle pop stick ( lollipop stick you can buy in arts ans crafts stores), or a appropriate sized bit of dowel rod etc and attach it to the lip of the dish/lid with masking or celetape acting as a ramp
2. Baby crickets being light and agile are very good climbers and will attempt to climb up and out of your tub often with great success. To stop this apply a line of celetape around the inside of your tub, the crickets will climb up to that line and simply fall off.
3. I actually use a sand/eco earth mix in the egg laying chamber as apposed to eco earth by itself as crickets do like to dig sometimes as much an an inch down before laying eggs. its entirely up to you but i find this works well.
Hope you found this basic guide helpful. Pm me with any questions.
- Darren
Being able to produce a variety of sizes of cricket will allow you to offer the appropriately sized prey to your reptiles. If done properly it is clean, dose not smell and is funnily enough, quite rewarding.
My way is simple, cheap and it works.
key factors for successfully breeding crickets:
1. Heat.
2. Food and water.
3. A suitable place to lay the eggs.
Getting started:
First things first, you need a large tub with a tight fitting lid.
you can buy these in the most supermarkets in the laundry/cleaning isle. I don't know if you can get tupaware tubs big enough so i bought and use a clear plastic laundry tub.
Cut a large rectangle on one side of the lid and cut and secure an appropriate sized piece of fly netting or mesh. I initially used a soldering iron to melt the fly netting to the plastic witch would have worked if not for my soldering iron refusing to work and ending up in the trash so i used duct tape on both sides of the lid (yes this will hold, I have never had a single escapee or intruder)
For food i have a shallow square dish, you can use a jar lid etc and for food, a mix of gutload, natural dog biscuits and commercial crickets pellets as i feel its good to give them a balanced and variable diet.
For water i use a small jar lid filled with water crystals as it dose not make a mess and prevents drowning witch crickets are prone to. Why? i don't know, you could have the shallowest dish with a rock in it so they could get out if they fell in and they would still drown every time.
For hides i use the small 6 egg cartons (mainly because the crickets i bought and breed came in a number of small tubs with these inside), you will only need 2-4 of these. The crickets will gather on both sides so don't worry about space. However you can just as easily use 2 regular 12 egg cartons, just depends on what you have.
Now the egg laying chamber. Grab yourself a small tupaware container, cut a small hole in one end, put a decent amount eco earth/ coca fiber in it and moisten it, Put the lid on it and your done.
Just make sure to give it a quick misting every couple of days to prevent substrate from drying out. For heat witch is very important, use a UTH ,heat wire or tape placed under the tub.
Tips and tricks:
1. larger crickets can climb but not very well, make sure dishes or lids used for food and water are shallow, if you cant find shallow ones simply get a small piece of wood, paddle pop stick ( lollipop stick you can buy in arts ans crafts stores), or a appropriate sized bit of dowel rod etc and attach it to the lip of the dish/lid with masking or celetape acting as a ramp
2. Baby crickets being light and agile are very good climbers and will attempt to climb up and out of your tub often with great success. To stop this apply a line of celetape around the inside of your tub, the crickets will climb up to that line and simply fall off.
3. I actually use a sand/eco earth mix in the egg laying chamber as apposed to eco earth by itself as crickets do like to dig sometimes as much an an inch down before laying eggs. its entirely up to you but i find this works well.
Hope you found this basic guide helpful. Pm me with any questions.
- Darren
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