jdog1027
Established Member
YouTube does make breeding crickets look easy. It is quite a bitch in fact. I'm just getting back into chameleons as of this past April. Before I divorced, I had my own reptile room, a large rodent colony and a whole 10x12 shed to raise crickets. Talk about a chore. I went overboard breeding Veileds at one point and had like 175 (2:6 adults and the rest were offspring), and I could hardly keep them fed by breeding my own. Breeding them is very hit and miss; one week I might hatch a batch and have tens of thousands, and then the next week several hundred. I never could figure out the variables that would cause such a wide range in the numbers. After factoring in the work involved, the price of feeding that many crickets ( Let me tell you, 50,000 crickets will blaze through some produce) and the uncertainty of what you will hatch, it's better to just order your own if you only have a couple of chameleons. The only time it makes sense to breed them, is when you are breeding and have hatchling chameleons and need a constsant supply of 1/4" crickets. Dubias are alot easier to certain degree, but the only thing about them is it can take alot longer to get a good colony up and running, as they are aren't nearly as prolific as crickets.
