kayenzed":38pnzxda said:
kingofnobbys":38pnzxda said:
Try Frog Arcade (Melbourne),
https://frogs.org.au/live-foods/
I think you'll be able to get crickets in bulk , or superworms in lots of 500 sent across the moat by air parcel post from them.
They send out orders on Tuesdays, so the deadline for online orders is 9am Tuesday . I'm in Newcastle and my crickets usually arrive Wednesday or Thursday , they ship all over Australia, so they'll have no problem sending to NZ.
I usually buy 700 x 2/3 sized crickets which come in a 4" diam mailing tube. (every 2 weeks of so)
Just Googled NZ insect breeders :http://biosuppliers.nz/crimson_004.htm , ouch ! pricey (a $1NZ / cricket in small tubs ONLY from them .
If you breed crickets from a tub of large crickets, I think all you'll need is a peet coir and some egg crates and a 30L plastic filing box , they wont crawl/climb/jump out of this.
Wow thank you so much for this! That would be very very helpful if they ship to NZ! There's another place called insectdirect where I used to get my crickets, but they're the same price. As for breeding them I did some research awhile back and apparently you need heat for them, certain soil, a container for eggs, and then another container for the babies once they've grown a little? Idk it seemed crazy. What's peet coir?
peat coir ( this stuff available from garden centres ,
http://www.brunnings.com.au/coir.html , as same as peat moss ).
A heatpad under the breeder tub on a thermostat will do the job , wrt keeping eggs and pinhead size crickets (babies) warm. If you have a nice warm house you will probably be fine without resorting to heating the breeding , incubation and rearing tubs , a good place might be under the kitchen sink or in the bottom of your pantry cabinet.
I used a 10L Décor ClearVue tub with small holes in the lid (made with a fine soldering iron) when I had very small crickets (20Days old crickets) keep them in.
I believe most here who breed their own crickets use click-clack tubs or 30L (or larger) storage tubs with lids. Beauty with these is they are compact, see through, tall enough to be escape proof, and STACKABLE ( so you can if you are organized, have a 5 or 6 organised into breeders, eggs, pinheads, 2 week olds, 4 week olds, 1/3 size, 2/3 size and then simply transfer the 2/3 sized crickets to the keeper tubs for gut loading prior to feeding out. (that's how I'd do if I decided to breed my own crickets).
Plastic take away food tubs with lids are the go for keeping the larger (small and medium sized) crickets in. Or used cricket tubs that have been cleaned , you only really need maybe 12 of these , you can probably sell your surplus crickets as well.
If you are stuck for the lids flash off a PM to me and I'll pop some of my spares (I've kept all the tubs I originally bought crickets in .
- I was buying my crickets in tubs (Piscus and BioLabsAu brand from local pet shops for my first 2 or 3 years and I kept all the empty tubs - handy for storing stuff in) , I'm sure I can slip a couple of dozen lids into an envelope to post to you (so long as you cover the postage, probably work out expensive postage to send a stack of tubs + lids to you when you get these over there easy enough).
http://birdcare.com.au/crickets.htm , might be worth approaching BirdCare.com.au for bulk crickets and superworms.