Thinking about breeding crickets for my Chams

[ArmyBaybe]

I just bought 500 crickets. There seems to be a lot of females and I was thinking about trying to breed them for my Chams to cut down the feeding cost. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have them in a huge tote with a screened lid. They have plenty of food, hiding spots and from the little bit of research I did I included a bowl with Eco Earth in it.

 

[Swayne8998]

I just bought 500 crickets. There seems to be a lot of females and I was thinking about trying to breed them for my Chams to cut down the feeding cost. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have them in a huge tote with a screened lid. They have plenty of food, hiding spots and from the little bit of research I did I included a bowl with Eco Earth in it.

Just prepare to clean lots and to do a fair amount of work. If I may, I suggest breeding dubia roaches over anything else. They don't smell, don't crap as much, and breed without you trying. About 3 months from baby to adult. You can feed in smaller amounts. You can gutload with anything. It's a win, win, win, win... a lot of wins But if you're insistent on crickets...

Provide a warm, dark environment. Leave the bowl with EcoEarth in for a few days, then take it out and but it in a box with a few holes. Soon, you should have thousands of baby pinheads! And more females is good, you want to leave a 3:1 ratio of females to males, the reason being males will compete and fight over breeding rights.

 

[ISA my Veiled]

Breeding crickets is a lot of trial and error. It really is. I have a link of a perfect guide someone on the forum gave to me here it is
http://www.frogforum.net/care-artic...ckets-care-breeding-common-house-cricket.html
This is the best guide i have ran into by far.

 

[ArmyBaybe]

Thanks for the advice. I will definitally check out that website. Ive never heard of anyone feeding Chams but I will look for some more info and maybe try it. Thanks

 

[ArmyBaybe]

*** feeding Chams roaches

 

[Swayne8998]

*** feeding Chams roaches

Really? There are tons and tons of threads on buying and purchasing roaches... They are probably the best feeder out of all. I would still strongly recommend getting some no matter what.

 

[ArmyBaybe]

Breeding crickets is a lot of trial and error. It really is. I have a link of a perfect guide someone on the forum gave to me here it is
http://www.frogforum.net/care-artic...ckets-care-breeding-common-house-cricket.html
This is the best guide i have ran into by far.

I just read that article. It has a lot of good info. I was only going to use 2 bins but now I will be going out and buying another

 

[ataraxia]

Really easy to do but they do take a while to grow.

https://www.chameleonforums.com/blogs/ataraxia/685-breeding-crickets.html

 

[SpartyTessy]

I have a colony of about 5000 pinhead's coming from just 200 adult Crickets. The keys I will point out are the following.

The best results I get are from having three bins and a clear bin for the eggs. you will be rotating the bins according to size of crickets. Sounds easier than it is. Make sure all bins have some kind of screen for air ventilation. The clear bin will be used for the containers full of eggs. Simply place the egg container that has been in the adult bin for about 4 days in the clear bin. Use a heating pad underneath the clear bin where you will be placing the containers of eggs and adult bin where the egg container they are laying the eggs in. This to make sure the temp is between 85 and 90 degrees. This will produce the most babies and at the fastest rate I have noticed.

Once you have placed the containers with the eggs in them in the clear bin with the right temp they will start hatching after 4-7 days. Make sure you have some ground up chow for them using healthy food and also some cricket water gel to make sure they stay hydrated. stay away from water as the babies can drown from the smallest of drop of water.

You then move the babies to the last container. that container is for the babies till they are 1/4". The next container is for the ones that are between 1/4" till just before being an adult. They wont have a hard exoskeleton or wings yet. Then the last bin is for the adults that are laying the eggs. You simply rotate the containers according to size. The only time you need to move the crickets is from the incubator clear container to the last container. Once your adult's start dying off you simply make the middle bin the adult bin, etc.

you want to make sure that the substrate you use for the egg laying containers are always moist because if they dry up the eggs will die. I simply spray them with a spray bottle once a day to make sure they stay moist.

This method has resulted in thousands if pin head crickets in just 3 weeks time. I have been going off of the link http://www.frogforum.net/care-artic...ckets-care-breeding-common-house-cricket.html