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Old 10-24-2006, 12:53 PM   #1
Chris Steele
Raising Crickets

I am just looking for tips and tricks on breeding crickets and what the easiest methods are for small numbers of lizards.
 
Old 10-24-2006, 01:30 PM   #2
Clay Davenport
My number one trick would be don't bother haha. It's aggravating and in my opinion not worth it. Roaches are the way to go.

That being said, reproducing crickets is a fairly easy affair. It's raising them to a usable size that poses the problems.
Put any shallow container, a deli cup, tupperware, whatever, in the tub with the crickets containing a suitable laying media. Moistened soil works fine.
The crickets will lay it full of eggs.
Change it out every couple of days with a new container.

Keep the cups containing the eggs at a warm temperature, 80 degrees or so, and they will hatch in a few days.
Initially you'll have a multitude of pinheads, but if conditions are not right you'll lose a significant percentage at each molt. Humidity is very important at this stage, but not to the point that there is any condensation on the bottom of the container.
Crickets are not real smart, if there's standing water, even a drop, they'll drown in it.
I kept dampened paper towels crumpled in the tub to raise the humidity.

Apparently the large scale cricket producers have the whole process figured out, but myself and several other people I have talked with who have tried it all agree that it is far more aggravation than it's worth.

Each female will lay 250-500 eggs at a time and then die. With these numbers, you could probably sustain a small number of lizards despite the mortality rate of the crickets.
Then again you may be able to do it with ease, but I sure wasn't able to.
 
Old 10-24-2006, 05:33 PM   #3
Chris Steele
Well see roaches were out of the question due to their ability to freak people around me out haha, but I think I'm going to be able to raise them for the beardies now, so I'm definately not going with crickets if thats the case. I wish crickets were easier to raise though! Thanks for all of you're info!
 
Old 10-24-2006, 06:05 PM   #4
John Apple
I'll second what Clay said, crickets are a pain in the ---well you know .
Whenever I need some baby crix [for feeding VERY small slings] I put a dozen or so fat female crickets in a tub with some wet potting soil and wait a couple weeks. I then have more than I need.
I also raise roaches and mael worms, both are easy as all heck to raise and the roaches I raise can not climb glass like hissers.
Any other cricket sizes I need I just buy them...wwwaaaayyyy easier than trying to raise them.
peace
 
Old 10-24-2006, 09:18 PM   #5
Chris Steele
What is a sling?? A baby lizard?? So when/if I ever decide to/do breed my dragons is that how I should start them or could they just eat young roaches? How many baby crix do you get from this (estimate of course)?
 
Old 10-25-2006, 12:12 AM   #6
Clay Davenport
You could start baby beardies on roach nymphs, but the problem with that is separating the nymphs in adequate numbers.
So far I haven't found any easy method to do this at all.

If I were to go back to raising dragons, I'd maintain the adults on roaches, but I'd probably go back to purchasing week old crix for the babies.
When I used to raise beardeds, I fed the hatchlings 12-18 crickets per day each, split up over 3 feedings. With 25 babies or so in a clutch, that translated to around 3-400 crickets per day. I couldn't imagine trying to separate that number of roach nymphs on a daily basis.

I never did figure out the ideal way to raise the crickets in size quickly. It would take me 2 weeks at least to get my crickets up to the size of week olds you buy. By the time I got them that large, the 2 or 3 thousand pinheads I started with would be down to 2 or 3 hundred.
If you took the time and played with it though, I'd say you could figure out the best way to at least get them to that size and be able to raise hatchling dragons on crickets you produce.
 

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