cricket breeder colony and laying bin... now what?

[jbrough42]

So, we've decided that a cricket colony is in our best interest. I've read the how-to's on breeding them but still have a couple of questions. I have my main colony in a huge bin... I separated out 25 females and 5 males into a smaller bin for breeding, I put a dish with an inch of moist organic dirt. Now what? lol. How long do I wait until I move the laying bin into the other bin where the pinheads will be allowed to hatch and mature prior to being introduced into the main colony? Do I wait a set amount of time, or should I be able to see the eggs? Also I know many insects won't breed well unless its pretty warm, is there a certain temp the crickets need? All assistance is much appreciated

 

[fluxlizard]

OK so for me what I do is this-

I keep a tupperware style food storage container filled with damp substrate (I've used different things, right now because my yard dirt is mud or frozen mud I'm using vermiculite) in with a whole colony of adult crickets (started with 1000). After 24 hours, I put a lid on the container, put the container to incubate in the mid 80s, and put a new container in with the adults. So every day I replace the nesting container with a new one. Otherwise the adults will eat many eggs, crap in the container inviting bacteria, the substrate dries out etc. as time passes. After a couple of weeks the eggs hatch in the covered containers. I remove the lid, and put it into a new tub, and continue to add containers into the new starter colony for a week as they hatch. Every week I start a new tub for all the hatchlings for that week.

So everything is a never-ending cycle- change the egg container, incubate, hatch, put in new tub, and so on.

Meanwhile I feed adults out of the breeding colony- no need to set aside a few specially for breeding. They all breed anyway, might as well get their eggs too and feed the breeders off as I go so I don't waste a lot to death by old age.

It's a lot of work- roaches are a lot less bother and space. LOL

But roaches can't touch the productivity and rapid life cycle of house crickets.