New cricket breeding technique for me

[froggsong]

Well, I've never seen the crickets eat the dry food as quickly as this bunch did, but then I've only had 1000 crickets at one time a few times.

I cleaned the bin a bit last night, mostly because I had to add carrots and celery and whatnot. I've had some deaths, but mostly of the junk I dumped in the trash was molted cricket skins. I'd say that less than 20 have died since I put them in the bin. Not bad. They are surely breeding like crazy though. I have to shut that door at night. I should have some baby crickets in a couple of weeks for sure (likely coming out of my ears, lol).

I put hardware cloth over my breeding medium this time to keep the crickets from digging down and eating the eggs, and they keep getting underneath it (thankfully none have gotten stuck and died yet), so I think next time I am going to try metal screen instead. I don't know if they ARE down there trying to eat the eggs, but I don't want to risk it. I want maximum yields this time.

[froggsong]

So... most of the crickets are dead. Over the last couple of days, they have died and died and died. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe they got too cold even with the heat light. I don't think it was just because they were old, because there were alot of younger ones dead too. I've got MAYBE 50 crickets left out of a thousand. I only fed off MAYBE 200. THIS SUCKS. I can't buy more crickets. Hubby says this happened last time (I don't remember, but I don't remember alot of things), and that I can't buy from this place again.

I did get a ton of eggs, so hopefully all is not lost. I can feed Franky and Riku supers once the crickets are all gone, so at least I don't have to worry about them going hungry because I can't afford feeders right now (during the moving process we've had to pay what is basically rent to two places for two months).

I think part of the problem may be that there is no substrate. So, when the crickets are on the "floor" they HAVE to crawl on one another, plus the plastic doesn't offer much "footing", and they slide around. So I moved the remaining crickets to the 20G tank that the boy rats were in for a while because it is smaller and easier to monitor the heat, and I put some carefresh in the bottom of the tank (it will keep the humidity down as well). They seem to be doing much better now. Now I have to find something to put the eggs into (I was going to use that tank for the baby crickets) so I can hatch them. Maybe I can cut a piece of wood to go into the bottom of the hex tank I broke and put them in there. That might work really well. I've noticed that the baby crickets residing in my superworm breeding bin are doing VERY well, so I may use a substrate of wheat bran for the baby crickets.

I am really about to give up on crickets entirely. I am getting so tired of the losses, it is WAY too easy for them to crash.

I am thinking of getting roaches, but it is very very hard for me... I'm from the south, I've grown up with a healthy hatred of roaches. I don't know if I can touch them to feed them off... They are soooooooo gross..... But, if I can keep a stable culture in a small tank and not have to separate them out for breeding, I might give it a try. I have a feeling it may prove harder to convince the husband than it will be to bring myself to touch them to feed them off...

So, I'd say that this breeding technique was largely a FAILURE.

[HewesHort]

Im so sorry to hear that froggy!!! you said before that they can keel over from too much humidity, i noticed when reviewing the how to that there was no ventilation in the bottom of the barrel. could the air have stratified and too much moisture settled in the lower portion?

DONT GIVE UP!!!

i have been considering roaches too, as im considering getting a beardie or uromastyx. any way there is a guy nearby that sells 1000 of them in various sizes for $10, if you want i can get you his info, im sure he'd be willing to ship.

[froggsong]

If you could pm me the info that would be great. That way if I decide to I can have that as an option. Crickets are just too darn expensive for them to keep dying this way... I fed my rats lots of freshly dead/dying crickets, and they love bugs, but my god, I couldn't feed them to the fast enough to keep from throwing away like 500 crickets...

[froggsong]

I lost every. single. cricket. Over a period of about three days. Even the young ones. I don't know WHAT happened, I just know that they all kicked it. I am pissed. I have no crickets and NO money. Not all of my herps can eat superworms... or at least not the size I have available. Oh well... I'll have to see what I can do, I guess. At least the eggs are finally starting to hatch.

I found mites in the breeding substrate again. Eating dead cricket bits I was having trouble getting out. This was fresh, sterile coco fiber, so I know that they have to be coming out of the house. I wonder if there is some other mite that's killing the crickets? I wish I knew what to do to make sure we don't take them with us when we move.

I hope that the crickets that are hatching now will fare better than the adults did. If I can't get them to live, I'm just going to break down and go with roaches. I really don't want to go with roaches, they totally freak me out and always have, but if I can't keep a cricket colony going, I'm going to have to get something easier to maintain.

I really do think that part of the problem is that there was no substrate at all, but that doesn't explain why they kept dying after I moved them to a smaller tank with some substrate.