Cricket set up and feeding?

I'm ordering 1,000 crickets and was wondering what their home should look like and what to feed them?

I used a 20g tank with a screen top but you can also use a big rubbermaid bin with a hole cut in the top covered with mesh as well. I used paper towel rolls for them to live in but you can use egg crates or similar. With crickets I put down a small substrate level using wood chips used for guinea pigs etc. I did that because it helped with the smell and made it easy to clean (just pull up the chips and replace every week or so). I put the cardboard on one side and the food on the other. I used peanut butter jar tops. One top would have water crystals and the other would have grain feed from premiumcrickets. I'd also put in some potato and vegetable scraps for them to eat and gutload on. Note that if you order grain feed you'll want to run it through the microwave in batches for a few minutes (or cook it in the oven on low for a while) to kill off any grain mites that may be hitchhiking. Those are a real pain to get rid of if they take hold (they are harmless, just a pain).

Hi, I JUST now ordered 1000 for Preimium Crickets. They should be arriving in 3-5 days. Question: Can I use grass as a substrate? Also, can they eat beardie pellets? The ones from PetSmart really seem to like them. Also, can they eat lettuce?

I had a left over bag of Timothy hay from when I had hamsters. I am using that as bedding for the crickets and it has made a HUGE difference to the smell. Like it's hard to believe how much better the tank is with that as bedding. The stuff is pretty cheap especially if you get the big bag.

I've been feeding mine cooking scraps and they seem to devour everything. Carrot peels, potato peels, tomato cores, lettuce leaves, apple peels and so on. I also crush (just a bit) some cat food and throw that in there as a protein source. When I grab some dandelion leaves from the yard for my beardie, I grab a bunch for them too. Strawberry tops and blueberries that are no longer firm (I'm picky) also get tossed in there.

I use a yogurt container lid to put some water crystals on so that it's easy to pull that out and rinse.

Basically, your crickets can and will eat almost anything. That's their role in nature. They eat stuff. Like all the stuff.