Cricket bin

Hello! Was wondering if everyone could post photos of their cricket bins? Mine is a mess and I'm trying to get some better setup ideas. Also any cleaning tips would be great. Due to my sellers sizing being a bit off I now have nearly 1500 cricket is two VERY different sizes. Thanks in advance!

I don't have one at the moment but can describe how I had mine set up. It was in a glass tank with mesh top (Coop's baby tank). I put down some wood shavings at the bottom. One half had paper towel tubes stacked up for housing and the other half had a plate that I put fresh veges on for them to eat. A couple of times per week I'd scoop out the shavings on one side and replace it, then move the housing and do the same on the other side.

Oh that's good. Right now I have a large tub and egg crate but the problem is that the food ends up scattered and it's so hard to move them back and forth to clean and the egg crates are all in pieces so they don't stack

Yeah cleaning the bin is a pain. Having the stackable cardboard tubes helps a bit because they gather in the tubes and are easy to move around but the food still scatters a bit. I modeled my dubia roach bin after it so it looks pretty similar actually...

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Its a roach bin, but was a cricket bin prior to that. Not my best construction...I didn't measure or use a square. Made it from scrap wood

I really wish Maggie would eat roaches ? These crickets smell so godawful. Ok so the biggest thing I'm noticing though is that right now I'm using scrap egg crates and you guys have larger pieces and tubes that can be stacked and organized.

Sick of crickets, to many escapees and one got up my shirt sleeve yesterday and actually started biting me. Can't blame them though lol.

LouP

That sounds like a nightmare!!!!!

I split my cricket bins into two separate bins and they're much cleaner now but my goodness they take up so much space!!! Maybe I'll try dubias again just to see. Not to mention I just looked and the stupid female cricket are laying eggs in my fresh water sponges. Stupid crickets

You can hatch crickets if they laid eggs in the sponge. Keep it a bit damp and warm, soon you'll have pin head crickets.
I use to hatch out about 10,000 per month. Sold most of them on Craigslist.

How much space does it take up? And aside from selling off the extras is it worth it to breed crickets for one lizard? My house is like a tiny house. So right now they are stinking the entire place up and dying off because I don't have enough space for an independent heat source. So with all of this is it worth the hassle? And would dubias be easier and less space? Or are any colonies worth the work for one dragon?

It does take up space because you will need a few bins. Breeding crickets are kind of a pain, that's the reason I don't do it any more. I bought roaches so I didn't have to mess with crickets. My cricket bins never stunk too bad, but I cleaned them regularly. But if there are eggs in the sponge, so might be worth trying.

We use a large Rubbermaid container. I cut the inside of the top off and duct taped a piece of metal mesh window screening.

Inside I place cardboard coffee trays up on their sides at one end.

At the other end I place carrots and bearded dragon pellets.

Works great with no smells. I have 2 bins and clean them out every 2 weeks moving the crickets for the dirty bin to the clean bin.

Maybe I need to make my ventilation bigger to keep the smell down. Right now I have two tubs stacked up in my bathroom, one for too big and one for right size and smaller, and it smells terrible. Having a tiny house just isn't set up for thousands of crickets in close quarters.

However!! I have hundreds, if not close to a thousand, cricket eggs. When I put the sponges in those crickets just pumped them completely full. Sooooo here's my next questions..
1) do I have to put the eggs ina separate bin by themselves?
2) if I switched to dubias and let them breed can they all be in one big bin together or do they need to be separated?
3) basically what's the differences in set up for colonization?

That sponge is pretty dirty, the eggs may mold because of it. But its still worth trying.
I would put vermiculite in a container with a screen lid, the crickets would lay eggs in it and I would put new vermiculite in with them every 3 days. The eggs I collected in a weeks time would all go into a container I put in my incubator. At 85-90°F it would take about 10-14 days to hatch them.
As for the roaches, all sizes can be kept in the same bin. You don't need anything fancy to house them. My pictured gray bin is a roach bin. Its just not as fancy as my Coleman cooler bin. The only issue with keeping roaches is trying to figure out the best way to heat the bin to 85°F-90°F. I use a heating element for mine, heat tape wasn't getting temps high enough. I don't heat my house in the winter and it gets below 55°F frequently...which would kill the roaches. It was too cold for the heat tape to maintain temps. I keep my Colman cooler bins in the garage, they are insulated well enough to maintain temps without problems. My dubia bin is in the house...its insulated, but not as well as the coolers, and I have room for it in my reptile room. I have pictures of both my cooler bins and my heated roach bin on a few roach threads...if you want to see them and can't find the pictures I can repost them.
Most roaches do not stink, and even though orange head roaches are reported to have a defensive smell...I don't notice it much. I would recommend orange heads over dubias. They breed faster and have more mass. You have to give the dragon less to fill them up.