Breeding Crickets/ Keeping them alive

[Dragonkate17]

So i've already started my journey in attempting to breed superworms. It's taking a real long time but i'm hanging in there. Anyway I want to breed crickets and currently have a little over 100. I put things like egg carton for them to climb in, give fresh food & quencher, clean out the bin daily & have 2 small cups full of loose top soil which I bought from Lowes. I've had a few die that got loose due to someone leaving the lid open... is this normal? I thought crickets were supposed to live a few weeks. Please help! trying my best to take care of them.

 

[Dragonkate17]

Will they lay their eggs in the cups of soil?

 

[Baldwin]

There are some write-ups on this forum on how to breed crickets. I followed this the instructions found here:

http://www.wikihow.com/Raise-Your-Own-Crickets

I have successfully bred them but will be phasing them out as soon as my Dubia colony can sustain my 2 dragons. It was a fun project to see the cricket life cycle and just to see if I could do it, but it's not worth it to me, IMO. Especially when you can buy crickets online for about 2 cents apiece. With that being said, look into the Dubias as they are much easier.

And yes, some will die for various reasons, so that is pretty common.

 

[Dragonkate17]

My parents wont let me have dubias, we saw them at the show but... they have had a BAD history with roaches.

 

[Baldwin]

My parents wont let me have dubias, we saw them at the show but... they have had a BAD history with roaches.

Yep, a lot of folks feel that way. Here's what you tell them to persuade them.

Crickets have the following attributes:
- They stink
- They chirp all the time of the day and night
- They bite
- If they escape, they can live quite comfortably in your house
- They fly
- They climb
- They have parasites

Roaches have these attributes
- No smell
- No noise
- No biting
- If they escape, they won't infest your house. They are tropical and require higher temps to live and reproduce
- They can't fly
- They can't climb
- No nasty parasites

And overall, having raised both, crickets require more attention than the roaches. I'm talking daily attention for the crickets.

These are not North American cock roaches. They are tropical roaches, and while similiar in appearance, they don't give people the hee-bee jee-bees that cock roaches do. My wife told me no-way to roaches and once I got them, she actually has no problem handling them and enjoys feeding them various table scraps to see what they will eat and how fast they will eat it. They have become one of our "pets" if you can believe that.

 

[Dragonkate17]

I believe you and yes I have to constantly clean the cricket bin, change their food. I actually haven't had any die at all I lost like 4 who got loose but otherwise they seem okay. My parents really are not allowing or liking the roach idea depending on which one I move in with. Anyway , thankyou for the help.