Do a lot of people breed their own crickets for food?

[RachelRiot]

I breed my own crickets. I probably have about 2000 pin heads in my reptile room. I have them all in breeding bins along one wall. The noise doesnt bother us so much because our house is large and it doesnt seem to drive the animals nuts either.

We have not had any issues with smell. We clean the bins free of any dead or dying crix each afternoon and wipe down the bins to get any feces out. We replace all food in there each day and at night (when the heat bulbs are off) we offer fresh greens and other veggies).

I am in Florida so our "winter" isn't what most would call a winter. Each morning we open the windows to the room so that it gets fresh air from outside and we have two small desk fans in there to circulate the air but not bother any of the animals.

It did however make my cats twice as desperate to try and break into that room. They have scratched the frame to the door so much we had to find an aluminum door frame to replace it with. :/

 

[Ep3Drew]

Im also getting tired of crix.. They do smell.. and just look disgusting.. And i have had plenty of escapees that ended up in odd places..
Dubias are sounding much more practical but i need to know if they can jump or climb first lol

 

[ciafardo 4]

Crickets are too much of a hassle to breed and they stink. Roaches are much more cost effective and don't smell.

have you ever held a dubia in your hand they stink bad they let of an odor thats less than pleasing but the colony doesnt stink like crix

 

[ciafardo 4]

Im also getting tired of crix.. They do smell.. and just look disgusting.. And i have had plenty of escapees that ended up in odd places..
Dubias are sounding much more practical but i need to know if they can jump or climb first lol

no dubia cant climb and they dont jump and they are the least creepy of the roaches except the males they breed like crazy if you keep them at 80f

 

[summoner12]

Cricket crack is good!

Roches will eat ANYTHING. Cricket Crack is great for gutloading them from what I hear. (I make my own gutload so haven't tried Cricket Crack)

Most roaches that you will be dealing with for cham food need warmth to thrive and slow down when cooler...I am sure you could get away with shipping them so long as they don't sit outside along the way and have a heatpack. Basically, they are the same as you would ship a cham but you can user two or three day shipping in better weather.

Cricket crack is GREAT for roaches. my guy Lenny wasn't liking Dubia at first... he ate one and wouldn't eat another for a month or more. Then I started to gut load the Dubia with cricket crack. I got him to eat one again and now hes hooked.

As for roaches in the mail.... don't worry about it . Ponders has a good story about shipping roaches and the packag getting lost in the mail and ending up back at her place a month later and only 2 were dead.

 

[ConcertPhotog]

have you ever held a dubia in your hand they stink bad they let of an odor thats less than pleasing but the colony doesnt stink like crix

What??? I just went over and grabbed a couple of adults and absolutely no smell whatsoever. I've read though that depending on what you feed them the colony can develop a smell, and some cricket gutloads are much better than others in terms of roaches. So far all I've been feeding mine is The Roach Guy's roach chow (along w fruits & veggies) - http://theroachguy.com/ I got my colony from him and would rate him a big two thumbs up.

 

[summoner12]

What??? I just went over and grabbed a couple of adults and absolutely no smell whatsoever. I've read though that depending on what you feed them the colony can develop a smell, and some cricket gutloads are much better than others in terms of roaches. So far all I've been feeding mine is The Roach Guy's roach chow (along w fruits & veggies) - http://theroachguy.com/ I got my colony from him and would rate him a big two thumbs up.

High protien gut loads are not good for chams from my understanding.

 

[FirstTimeChameleon]

Same here. I dont breed crickets because the smell and are noisy.
Roaches, kingworms (superworms), isopods, phasmids are all easy to breed, inexpensive to breed, quiet and not smelly

I still buy crickets, for sake of variety

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the 'kingworms aren't smelly' assertion.

I used to feed kingworms to my bearded dragon, and once in a while (out of some sort of misguided magnanimity to the feeders) I would let the last superworm in the bucket go free in my anole terrarium. They grow into smelly beetles. The beetles bred, and I still have the occasional superworm or smelly beetle popping up in the anole enclosure a year after I let the last worm go free in there.

(Nowadays I just throw them out into the cold of winter when I see them in there).

So easy to breed, yes. But odourless? Hardly.

Roaches sound gross though... mealworms are very easy to breed and the beetles don't seem to smell as bad.