# EASY way to breed crickets?



## squeaky10199 (May 26, 2008)

i want to breed crickets but i dont know how to do it. i have tried so hard and i succeeded one time but i didnt know how i did it and they never survived.so i want to know the easiest way to breed crickets. thanks.


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## gvfarns (May 26, 2008)

In my experience letting them loose in your house works pretty well.  You can follow the chirps at night when you want to collect them.


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## B-fish (May 26, 2008)

Its very easy, the first time i did it was not on purpose, but you can tell males from females really easily becuase the females have a long thing coming out of there butt that helps then they there eggs. Well put the female's and male's to gether for a couple days. Take the Females out of the enclosure and then put them in a enclosure that has sand in it and make sure the sand it very moist because the females will only lay there eggs somewhere where it is moist. Then your eggs will hatch, i dont see any point in doinng this because it takes like at least 5 months for the pinhead's to get to a good size. Make sure you do not put the males in with the eggs they will eat them.


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## AubZ (May 26, 2008)

There are so many hassle's with crix, so if I were you I would rather look into a roach colony.   I receive mine tomorrow and am looking forward to it although I will only be able to start feeding them in a good few months.   There is tons of info on them here and real easy to do.   Also don't just die like crics do.


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## dirtydirt (May 26, 2008)

*How about*

Soft music, dim lights, a bottle of wine......


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## hairmetalspider (May 26, 2008)

B-fish said:


> Then your eggs will hatch, i dont see any point in doinng this because it takes like at least 5 months for the pinhead's to get to a good size. Make sure you do not put the males in with the eggs they will eat them.



What?

I have a really hard time following some of your posts and what you're trying to say because of the run on sentences.


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## WyvernsLair (May 26, 2008)

B-fish said:


> Then your eggs will hatch, i dont see any point in doinng this because it takes like at least 5 months for the pinhead's to get to a good size. Make sure you do not put the males in with the eggs they will eat them.


If it's taking 5 months to grow them up then you are NOT doing it right.  Crickets have about an 8-10 week lifespan when given the proper conditions.


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## WyvernsLair (May 26, 2008)

squeaky10199 said:


> i want to breed crickets but i dont know how to do it. i have tried so hard and i succeeded one time but i didnt know how i did it and they never survived.so i want to know the easiest way to breed crickets. thanks.


Crickets are more time & space consuming than roaches because you have to have multiple containers to be successful. Roaches can all be done in just one container without problems.


My method is this:

Set the adults up in a container (usually a medium or large critter keeper plastic cage is good). Make sure they have food and water and egg crates to hide and crawl on.  I usually buy a few dozen adult crickets from the petstore or from a reptile show and separate all the females and put them into the cage. I then only put 5 males in with them (they can breed the females but you won't have the full racket of noise of a whole bunch of males). I feed the other males to my spiders <g>. 

Place a shallow sized delicup filled with a mixture of damp peat and coco fiber (2 parts peat to 1 part coco fiber) into the cage. Check the condition of the soil every few days and mist lightly if it begins to dry out... you want damp not soaking wet!  After 7-10 days take the deli out and replace with a fresh made one (if you plan on keeping a steady supply going). Depending on the fertility of the females each deli can have a couple hundred to a thousand eggs laid in it when you switch it out.

Set the egg filled deli into a paper towel-lined shoe box (or similar smooth sided plastic container that is much taller than the height of the deli cup since you don't want it too short that the pinheads can jump out).  Cut a small strip out of the middle of the lid (1x2" or 2x2") and glue some window screen to the inside (to provide some ventilation otherwise the soil will mold). Keep the container stored in a warm spot (80-85F). Again do not let the soil dry out.. mist lightly if it gets too dry. In 7-14 days the eggs should begin hatching and will continue to hatch for about a week and a half.  Usually at the 10 day hatching mark I start stirring the soil up a bit in case some eggs got too compacted to the bottom of the deli. I often put some toilet paper rolls into the container to give the pinheads something to climb on. I also keep a piece of paper plate with small amount of food in the container and a chunk of gel water (they don't need much at that size). Every few days I'll move what has hatched to a medium size critter cage that is also set up with food/water/climbing material (this is so that the hatching container does not get over crowded). The baby rearing cage just like the hatchery must be kept warm!  I tend to put a piece of paper towel between the top of the cage and the lid to allow for ventilation but also help retain humidity (you don't want little crickets to dry out and die). With plenty of warmth, food and water crickets will still grow at different rates - some just naturally grow bigger and faster than others so you will need to separate the larger crickets from the smaller at some time.

Now you get into the problem of how you want to store or keep separate the different sizes. If you want to keep the sizes very strictly separated you will need many additional containers to rotate through as you progress with additional hatchings from delis. Since I personally don't much care I tend to keep pinheads up through 1/4" in my baby container and those larger than 1/4" up through adults in my grow out bin. The grow out bin I keep a little on the cooler side (74-78 F) so that their growth is a bit slower to stretch out my supply in case I have set backs on egg production etc. Of course it takes much longer to get adult sizes that way so I just buy a dozen or so new adults from the petstore to throw into the breeding container as needed when other females start to die off.

I have a large deli container that I have punched/drilled a lot of 1/8" holes into it as well as cut out the lid and glued fiberglass window screen onto (crickets can squeeze through spaces smaller than you think so for sorting up to 1/4" crickets I use the 1/8" holes).  Every 10 days I clean out my baby bin. I dump all the crickets into that deli cup and put the lid on and set it on top of a piece of egg crate in another container... the smaller crickets will crawl through the holes & screen while the larger ones cannot.  Usually by the time I am done cleaning the bin, most of the crickets have sorted themselves out (sometimes it takes a little longer).  The small crickets get dumped back into the baby bin, the larger crickets get dumped into the grow out bin.


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## clear (May 26, 2008)

a friend wrote a very good breeding tutorial so i posted it on my site, look under crickets and your see it.


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## TalonAWD (May 27, 2008)

Thanks for the link /\ /\ /\

I'm planning on breeding crickets as well. I think it would be cleaner and probably healthier than store bought. You can say that they would be mite free.

I like the idea of drilling holes to sort out the smaller ones. That would work if you have a variety of tarantula sizes from slings to adults.

I can't keep roaches cause my wife hates them but crickets she accepts. Crickets have a shorter life span so even if they escaped, they would die really fast. Roaches last/live longer and my wife knows this.
Crickets, though an inferior feeder to most, does has its points in value.


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## clear (May 27, 2008)

points in value as far as they can infest your house faster than most roaches? lol tell her about the bonus of dubia roaches, no smell, no noise, dont climb, dont fly.


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## WyvernsLair (May 27, 2008)

TalonAWD said:


> I like the idea of drilling holes to sort out the smaller ones. That would work if you have a variety of tarantula sizes from slings to adults.



Yeah I got tired of trying to hand pick out the larger crickets so I wanted an easier way.  Took a while to find the right size holes for my needs.  I find that drilling the holes with a drill bit (using a dremel) was easier on my hands/wrists than using a rotary leather hole punch (regular paper hole punches won't fit around the rips of plastic containers).


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## bjaeger (May 27, 2008)

feedersinc said:


> a friend wrote a very good breeding tutorial so i posted it on my site, look under crickets and your see it.


Interesting website you got there. Very informative.


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## clear (May 28, 2008)

thanks, i hope it has helped everyone out that has went to it!


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## Don&SallysZoo (May 28, 2008)

squeaky10199 said:


> easiest way to breed crickets.



Don't...do roaches instead. Dubias are super easy to breed + don't climb. Much meatier meal for T's.  Provide a rubber-maid type of tub, some egg crates, food, water gel, a heat source, and of coarse the roaches start with at least 100. Then just let 'em do there thing.


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## clear (May 28, 2008)

roaches are by far the easiest to breed! Dubias are great, very meaty but breed slower, lobsters are very fast breeders but they climb and are smaller.


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## Moltar (May 28, 2008)

B dubias are great with one very notable exception. Sometimes t's won't eat them. If you throw one in there alive and unharmed they will sit stone still until the t goes away then burrow under the substrate. You'll find the durn thing hiding somewhere in there like, weeks later. "No wonder my t is so skinny!" Thus they require some 'prep work' in the form of a crushed head before throwing them in. My theory is that in their natural environment they are most often predated upon by animals that hunt by vibration. (t's and/or scorps) and have developed defensive behaviors to fool them. They freeze when threatened and when injured (like a crushed head) they thrash about in a way that must feel like a much larger bug to an observing t. They act scared of an injured dubia sometimes. They are still good feeders just... persnickety.

B lateralis (turkistan/red-runners) breed super-mega-fast and also cannot climb glass. They're extremely fast though and therefore hard to catch. Also, they don't get much larger than crickets do. The upside to them is that t's eat them much more readily, especially the arboreals, it seems.

Those are the only two roach species I can speak of from personal experience. I keep both and feed dubs to some spp and lats to others. If i had to have only one i THINK i'd pick the lateralis.

Crickets are the spawn of hell and i only buy them occasionally to feed my P cavimanus scorpion and wc black widow. That's because they're both too lame to catch either roach sp.


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## AubZ (May 28, 2008)

I have just recently been playing around with the crics I buy for my T's and a tip to keep them alive longer is to buy a tall tub or container, put in some eggcrates stack in there and throw in a carrot now & then for moisture.   If you wanna get into breeding them then add a couple dog pellets.    I have had not one cric die in over a week, which is normally impossible.  

So try that, they definately need space, so spread 'em.


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## Eclipse (May 28, 2008)

Here's a short simple way...

1. Have adults in the same container.
2. Have a bowl of moist soil in there for about 1 week.
3. Take the bowl out into a seperate container and keep the soil moist
(I suggest a good dampening once a week)
4. In about 3-4 weeks you will have baby crickets.
5. Keep the container humid or at least moist.
6. Feed them veggies/protein ie. dogfood.

That's all I did and the culture lasted for 2 years. I think it could of lasted longer if I didn't stop breeding them. Check the soil for little rice looking things, that's what their eggs look like.

You will know when they hatch because you will see things that look like little white jumping ants in the container.


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## BoomBoom (Jun 6, 2008)

I just started a cricket colony. I put them in a round tub with a cut up paper towel holder, a small moist paper towel, and three types of food to choose from (bread crumbs, doggie kibbles, sugar and oats. They LOVE the bread crumbs. I also put in a small tub with moist subtrate. I would say 30 mins after I put the crickets in there, all the female started sticking their butts in the subtrate laying eggs. 3 hours later they are still doing it!


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## BoomBoom (Jun 9, 2008)

Edit: As of right now, all but one female of the 9 crickets I got died. Two the T ate, the rest just droped. I bought them as adults, I guess thats why.:?


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## opticle (Jun 9, 2008)

i started my cricket colony 3 days ago, my substrate is sand, the temprature is mild, the 1st night the females laid eggs like it was the end of the world! the 2nd night their was a few, and now that brings me up to the 3rd night, no laying eggs, i guess all the egg laying is done. a few things that have crossed my mind: i just have 1 container containing meduim crickets and adults, the females have laid eggs in the container along with all my other crickets in their. will this effect the eggs? do they still hatch? or do i need a separate container for egg laying?? if so i will have to start again the sand is damp and theirs 3 layers of egg crates in there. please someone tell me if i've done something wrong:?


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## Moltar (Jun 9, 2008)

My biggest problem with crickets has always been the mortality rate. The adults live for about two weeks. If you can't feed them off in that time you and up with a LOT of cleanup of carcasses. Compare that adult roaches living a year or more, plus easier breeding and i'm sold.


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## squeaky10199 (Jun 9, 2008)

i cant do roaches because i have no where to put them and my dad wont let them in the house. my friend got some lobster roaches and they arent supposed to infest but they did in his moms house and it is bad. plus i dont like roaches myself as my tarantulas wont eat roaches either. i will try some of these ideas! thanks!


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## Stylopidae (Jun 9, 2008)

The articles section of this site is a very good resource. It's right at the top of the forum, a little bit above this one.

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=72565



squeaky10199 said:


> i cant do roaches because i have no where to put them and my dad wont let them in the house. my friend got some lobster roaches and they arent supposed to infest but they did in his moms house and it is bad. plus i dont like roaches myself as my tarantulas wont eat roaches either. i will try some of these ideas! thanks!


Correlation does not equal causation. Post a picture of those roaches that infested your friend's house, and I can virtually guarantee that the ID will not be lobster roaches.

I've had _thousands_ of lobster roaches escape at a time and have not had them breed in my bug room...even when the temperatures climbed to 80 degrees.


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