Questions about breeding crickets.

[TipsyTraveler]

So i wanted to know how you guys keep your cricket colony? Dubias are not an option for me, and i have a super worm colony, but i wanted a cricket one as well. i may end up selling my super worm colony, or giving it to my friend for her beardie.

They will be in a large purple plastic bin (like one used for storage) in my closet. (i dont use the closet for anything) i have a heat mat for under the bin, some flukers calcium water crystals, and calcium cricket diet. ( i went all calcium because keyori is having some calcium issues right now).i have been saving up paper towel rolls, so i have quite a few of them (like 30) and some egg crates.

do you guys use substrate? i was going to keep them on the bare plastic floor.
do they stink that bad? i had about 1000 a while back and they never stunk. but i wasnt breeding them.
how do you guys handle the eggs and babies? i was going to have a tup-a-ware container in there with some non toxic soil for the eggs, and switch it out and into a seperate 10gallon after 3 days of egg laying.

 

[TipsyTraveler]

anyone?

 

[Reptiles4Life]

Ok i am doing the exact same thing so you don't need flooring just a plastic bottom will work fine and the egg crates are great the don't need a heat mat at all and the stink bad for me (but that's my opinion) so what you do for the eggs is get a dish of some sort and fill it with vermiculite and mist it daily or when dry but when you open it don't get maggots in it they will breed like crazy when you get eggs incubate them but the might hatch on there own and make sure you don't lose any with tree tails cause the ones with tree tails are female and will lay eggs with one of the tails they will lay eggs with the with too tails are ok tough never ever let the vermiculite get dry or thee eggs dye off but that's all there is to it.