[Guest]

Well i would like to notify everyone that i had my first crickets hatch early the s'mornin. I woke up to feed my frogs and i noticed that one of my tupperware bins were full ( thousands ) of little pinheads. If anyone is intrested in saving money u should really start to breed crickets. It is so easy to do. Happy froggin

 

[Guest]

Thats great to hear , what was the secret to success :?:

 

[mindcrash]

Do you have any instructions? Also, do they stink really bad?

 

[Schism]

Good, how can you stand the smell???
I bred them years ago and the noise and smell was unbareable. It was easy to get pinheads, but IMO not nearly worth the hassle/smell/noise/etc. Compared to cricket days, fruit flies only are great!!!

 

[Guest]

It is very easy to do.......here are the steps i use......

1) buy a tupperware bin big enough that they can't jump out. ( Walmart )
2) throw some egg carton, papertowel rolls into the bin.
3) get two tupperware containers about 2 inches tall and fill it with soil.
Free of harmful contaminents. Put water in the soil so that it is very
moist.
4) Provide some food Cricket quencher, Orange peels at all times
5) Go to your cricket dealer and grab around 4-5 dozen crickets 4-1 ratio
4 being female 1 being male
6) throw the crickets into the tub covering them with the lid.
7) check every once and a while to see if the soil is moist and there is
food and after about a week pull the tupperware containers out of the
bin and put them into a seperate container.
8) after a couple of weeks 2 roughly u will have pinheads everywhere.
9) keep the temp. for the eggs around 75 or 80.
10)adult crickets with 1/2 inch stingers as you may think they are, are
best for producing babies.

I find that if you keep the bin tip top shape cleaning debris away you will not have any problem with a stench. You may have a bit but it won't kill.

Well happy hopping and if u could let me know how you guys do that would be great.

P.s. I think the whole project cost me all of $10 MAX

 

[KeroKero]

The smell has a lot to do with what you feed them and how clean you keep them, unfortunately its a lot like keeping mice lol. You can't just let them sit there and eat and what not, you have to at least sweep out the droppings every day to every other day and keep the eggcrate dry (so you don't get mold) and its really not that bad. They just take a bit more effort when you are keeping large containers of them than the same amount of fruit flies does. Overpopulating the tanks and not keeping them healthy (thus having a lot of death) are also other causes for them being a big stink. It really doesn't take that many adults to get a ton of pinheads, 24 in a ten gallon will give you thousands, more than most need.

If you go back a couple pages on this forum, the topic of how to breed them has come up multiple times, and I know I've given the full lowdown on how I've done it in the past at least twice on this forum.

Sadly now adays due to a severe allergy I developed to them over the years I look like I'm working in the CDC or going into surgery when I work with them, dust mask so I don't inhale, chem goggles so the dust doesn't get in my eyes, and I have to wear rubber gloves if I have cuts on my hands, otherwise I just have to was my hands and arms after I'm done working with them. That was real fun when two years ago my job in the lab was to breed thousands of them.

FFs are the easiest feeder bug I've ever worked with and I've run into a LOT over the years. FFs spoil everyone on their ease of care :wink:

 

[Derek Benson]

I've kept and bred crickets for years, and Corey is right. What you feed them has a lot t do with it, also the cleanliness of their cage. You can't jsut keeping putting crickets in the same cage after feeding them off. I clean mine out about once a week, I use three 10 gallons for the crickets. One for adults, one for "small" from the pet store/grown hatchlings, and the final for the babies. I use no substrate, just a lot of paper towel rolls (I ask every one I know to save them) they work much better than the egg carton in my opinion. I feel them oranges and occasional cucumber/romaine when I feed my tortoise. The oranges gut loads them and can enhance your red frogs, if no red frogs, it's a good feeder food, smells good, and they eat it fast. I usually leave the tupperware in the adult cage for 2 days, cover it with cling wrap and put it in the baby cage with a small lamp over it.

 

[*GREASER*]

I just started my own little breeding project the other night. I took a critter keeper I had laying around and put in a dish of bedabeast a dish of food and a dish of moist papertowles for water. I only have 3 females and two males in there. Plus I dont need to many of the little guys. But im really excited about expanding my frogs diet and am looking forward to cultureing more feeders in the future.

 

[Guest]

Best of luck man