My cricket rearing tub!

[Whatcamo]

How do you handle cleaning their enclosure, and how often do you need to clean it?

To be honest I haven't cleaned their enclosures yet I have the egg crates standing horizontally so all the frass and shedding falls to the bottom I believe the heat from the bulb and ventilation keep the enclosure very dry and odorless
Tomorrow I will be transferring them all to 3 large tubs so that'll be the first cleaning!

 

[Whatcamo]

And the process starts again!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1i-prW-g50

 

[agavrysh]

So what do you do with them? You have many chams?

 

[Whatcamo]

Nah just one cham haha I guess I need more to eat them off! I've been practically giving them away in my area haha

 

[Sticktongue]

Ok so i noticed on STHELI video he takes out females and puts them into a different container. How in the world do you know males from females?
Whatcamo.. Do you separate females out also?

 

[Whatcamo]

Nah I don't separate the male and females heres a pic of a male and female the cricket closest to you in the pic is the female

 

[Sticktongue]

Nah I don't separate the male and females heres a pic of a male and female the cricket closest to you in the pic is the female

Thank you very much.

I need to order some feeders pretty soon. What size should i get specifically for my starting breeders? Right now i order 3/8s and 1/2 for feeders. Should i get adults to lay my eggs, or younger?

 

[whereswaldo]

i thought the males had the wings ?

 

[sdheli420]

Thank you very much.

I need to order some feeders pretty soon. What size should i get specifically for my starting breeders? Right now i order 3/8s and 1/2 for feeders. Should i get adults to lay my eggs, or younger?

just get adults, they will lay instantly, and 16 days later you got pinheads..they reach a good feeding size in about 2-3 weeks..

 

[sdheli420]

i thought the males had the wings ?

that pic is actually 2 females, one is not sexually mature (the prong, only the black tip visible) and one is almost ready to lay, the males make the noise and have shorter bulkyer wings females have long slender wings..

 

[Whatcamo]

Ok ok haha yeah not my pic and just grabbed that pic of google but it does show a reference as to what the differences would be

 

[Whatcamo]

just get adults, they will lay instantly, and 16 days later you got pinheads..they reach a good feeding size in about 2-3 weeks..

I'd bee careful where you get adults from some places breed off the adults before they send them out you may be safer getting 3/4" then it would be to far out before they're breedible

 

[Sticktongue]

I'd bee careful where you get adults from some places breed off the adults before they send them out you may be safer getting 3/4" then it would be to far out before they're breedible

I think i'll get the 3/4s then to be safe. Also, How many crickets do you hatch out each batch? I'll prob just get 500 to breed. I dont have anything that its that big of a cricket right now so i cant feed them off when they are done laying.

 

[Whatcamo]

All depends on how many gets laid I think I had about 500 or maybe more and I ended up with a few thousand haha so they reproduce a lot! If you do it and keep your colony up you won't need to buy crickets again and will probably be selling trading off a lot of them

 

[sdheli420]

All depends on how many gets laid I think I had about 500 or maybe more and I ended up with a few thousand haha so they reproduce a lot! If you do it and keep your colony up you won't need to buy crickets again and will probably be selling trading off a lot of them

each large female should be expected to be laying around 80-100 eggs untill they die of old age..

 

[Whatcamo]

each large female should be expected to be laying around 80-100 eggs untill they die of old age..

Yeah what he said

 

[Captive Creations]

how do you move the hatchling crickets to clean the bin??

 

[Whatcamo]

how do you move the hatchling crickets to clean the bin??

I found that using he light it kept everything dry and warm, I also used egg crates stood up vertically so all the poop and sheddings fell to the bottom so this overall kept the container clean and virtually odor free then when they were about 1/2" long I separated them into 3 larger bins by taking the egg crate out with the crickets on them and placing them into the new containers? Did that answer your question basically I don't clean them out until that colony is done

 

[ericasheree]

An Idea

To those of you that breed crickets. would it be a bad idea to make the bottom of the cage out of mesh wire? That way the droppings can fall below to a catch container or would that be hard for them to walk on? I know they climb on the mesh on my chams cage so I thought maybe this could work and maybe not have to clean AS OFTEN, but still clean a few times a month.

 

[Whatcamo]

To those of you that breed crickets. would it be a bad idea to make the bottom of the cage out of mesh wire? That way the droppings can fall below to a catch container or would that be hard for them to walk on? I know they climb on the mesh on my chams cage so I thought maybe this could work and maybe not have to clean AS OFTEN, but still clean a few times a month.

Yeah that's a good idea maybe I mean try it out and let us know