Sterile Crickets???

[pepatt]

I'm in the local pet store buying some crickets to get Porter by until the dubias start to breed up a bit. I figured I'd buy a few bigger crickets and get them breeding. While talking to the clerk, I asked if she could tell the males from the females. She said,"No, but it doesn't really matter. Our crickets are sterile."

So here are my questions:

• How does one sterilize crickets? More importantly,
• Where can I buy crickets that are virile

Thanks!

 

[patrickb]

Never heard this one before! But then again, pet store employees do make some interesting remarks sometimes. It could be possible, but I doubt any cricket farm would go through the process of sterilizing crickets however that would need to be accomplished. I haven't seen reference to a commercial method before, so dunno.

Sounds more like she is shrugging off not knowing how to sex them and trying to discourage you from breeding them so you have to return and buy more. That is more probably in my opinion, but I am a big ol' skeptic to begin with.

Look at the adult crickets, they will either have 2 or three "prongs" at the end of their body. The one's with three prongs at the females. The third one is much longer than the other two on the outside and looks like it is coming from their butt.

Provide some pint sized containers with damp soil in the crickets home when you see these females appearing and you should notice they will start laying eggs. Do a search for cricket breeding here on the forums, or even google and there will be a lot of detailed guides and some with great pics!

 

[pepatt]

I just contacted an on-line feeder breeder I asked if his crix were sterile. He said his weren't and neither were the ones at the store! So maybe that was just an attempt to keep me from breeding them myself.

Seems silly to lie about it. Honestly, what is the percentage of people out there who would breed rather than buy? It's gotta be small.

Oh well, I believed it — once.