First attempt at breeding feeder crickets

[jay444]

Last month I ordered 50 crickets to feed my Ts and I received almost 300 or 400 instead with a bunch of obvious gravid females so I thought I'd give a try hatching some pinheads.
A soon as I got them, I've separated the pregnants females in 2 differents tall deli cups in which there was an inch of moist coco fiber to lay their eggs. After 48 hours, they were done laying and I got them back in the main colony, in which plenty of breeding was still happening.
For the first week and a half, I left the containers at 75-80F with 100% humidity. Since they where nowhere neer hatching, I move them in an homemade incubator (made of a styrofoam container and a seedling heat mat) at 85F and 100% humidity and they hatched in a week.

I'm pretty happy with the result I have waaaaaaaaaaay to many crickets now (the picture was taken at the beginning of hatching, consider x4 in count x2 containers), but I'll just give them away to people in my town.

View attachment video-1605275821.mp4

 

[Arachnolover2]

Wow! Good on you! You could easily go on to creating a small side job out of feeder insect breeding! There's plenty of demand for sure!

 

[Smotzer]

Congrats on the successful hatching!

 

[Gurantula]

Congrats! Breeding crickets is super easy and very rewarding. I started with about 15 females and ended up with more than 400 little ones. I only let them lay eggs for 24 hours too! I had to give a bunch away. Hopefully you have a nice big enclosure to put those in because you have a lot!

If you ever want to breed only a small amount, only let a handful of females lay eggs for 1-2 hours, you'll get about 50-100 hatching. That's my go to method now.

Also I just gotta say since this is your first time breeding crickets, look into grain mites. They will probably appear sooner or later if you dont take proper precautions.

Good job by the way!

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

I accidentally had a litter of baby crickets recently but it seems they all died. Considering trying to do it on purpose and actually figuring out how to keep the bloody things alive.

 

[Konstantin Konstantinov]

I accidentally had a litter of baby crickets recently but it seems they all died. Considering trying to do it on purpose and actually figuring out how to keep the bloody things alive.

Hi
I keep mine on cheap porridge oats and water cristals( change the cristals as required in my conditions its sbout every 4 days) only( dont mess with vegetables and leaves)both in a small dishes and they grow to adulthood if I don't use them.I buy them as hatchlings and keep them with a bit of cardboard as base and few bits of egg crate for hides in a galon jar without a lid when they outgrow my slings I move them to a small critter keeper and get fresh batch in.I have all sort of sizes of tarantulas so this way I have different sizes feeders.If you keep only few slings you can freeze the required size crickets so they don't outgrow your spiders all the time.
I do wander how people struggle to keep those things alive.lol
Regards Konstantin

 

[Albireo Wulfbooper]

Hi
I keep mine on cheap porridge oats and water cristals( change the cristals as required in my conditions its sbout every 4 days) only( dont mess with vegetables and leaves)both in a small dishes and they grow to adulthood if I don't use them.I buy them as hatchlings and keep them with a bit of cardboard as base and few bits of egg crate for hides in a galon jar without a lid when they outgrow my slings I move them to a small critter keeper and get fresh batch in.I have all sort of sizes of tarantulas so this way I have different sizes feeders.If you keep only few slings you can freeze the required size crickets so they don't outgrow your spiders all the time.
I do wander how people struggle to keep those things alive.lol
Regards Konstantin

All my little leggy friends take ¾" or bigger and won't scavenge so I'm constantly buying crickets. Would be nice to have a steady supply but I'm not sure I want to turn my entire bedroom into a cricket breeding facility

 

[viper69]

I’ve done this too at room temps of about 72

Mini crickets are useful.

 

[Ferrachi]

Last month I ordered 50 crickets to feed my Ts and I received almost 300 or 400 instead with a bunch of obvious gravid females so I thought I'd give a try hatching some pinheads.
A soon as I got them, I've separated the pregnants females in 2 differents tall deli cups in which there was an inch of moist coco fiber to lay their eggs. After 48 hours, they were done laying and I got them back in the main colony, in which plenty of breeding was still happening.
For the first week and a half, I left the containers at 75-80F with 100% humidity. Since they where nowhere neer hatching, I move them in an homemade incubator (made of a styrofoam container and a seedling heat mat) at 85F and 100% humidity and they hatched in a week.

I'm pretty happy with the result I have waaaaaaaaaaay to many crickets now (the picture was taken at the beginning of hatching, consider x4 in count x2 containers), but I'll just give them away to people in my town.

View attachment 365871

View attachment 365872

That's a lot of crickets !! Good job...

 

[jay444]

Thanks Maybe in the future i'll consider it! For now I'm still living in a rented apartment so I want to keep it on the smaller scale to avoid bothering my neighbors with the noise.

 

[jay444]

I’ve done this too at room temps of about 72

Mini crickets are useful.

For sure, and much easier to feed smaller slings than FFF in my opinion

 

[jay444]

Hi
I keep mine on cheap porridge oats and water cristals( change the cristals as required in my conditions its sbout every 4 days) only( dont mess with vegetables and leaves)both in a small dishes and they grow to adulthood if I don't use them.I buy them as hatchlings and keep them with a bit of cardboard as base and few bits of egg crate for hides in a galon jar without a lid when they outgrow my slings I move them to a small critter keeper and get fresh batch in.I have all sort of sizes of tarantulas so this way I have different sizes feeders.If you keep only few slings you can freeze the required size crickets so they don't outgrow your spiders all the time.
I do wander how people struggle to keep those things alive.lol
Regards Konstantin

Personally I feed mine organic dried cat food along with usually 1 kind of fruit and 1 kind if veggie and I change everything every 2 or 3 days. Almost no cannibalism and mysterious death from this diet. For water I use a dish filled with soaked up coco fiber.

 

[jay444]

Congrats! Breeding crickets is super easy and very rewarding. I started with about 15 females and ended up with more than 400 little ones. I only let them lay eggs for 24 hours too! I had to give a bunch away. Hopefully you have a nice big enclosure to put those in because you have a lot!

If you ever want to breed only a small amount, only let a handful of females lay eggs for 1-2 hours, you'll get about 50-100 hatching. That's my go to method now.

Also I just gotta say since this is your first time breeding crickets, look into grain mites. They will probably appear sooner or later if you dont take proper precautions.

Good job by the way!

Thanks for the hints! Well I got myself second and bigger cricket bin (40L) this weekend. I only had a tempory enclosure to keep feeders bought from the store alive, nothing to support a colony.

 

[Ferrachi]

Thanks Maybe in the future i'll consider it! For now I'm still living in a rented apartment so I want to keep it on the smaller scale to avoid bothering my neighbors with the noise.

I didn't even think about the noise

Does it get louder with more crickets ?