I am breeding crickets myself. I don't find them smelly or anything others say they are but then I clean the tank every other day. If you get 1000 crickets, think about this cause its what I did, each adult female is usually ready to lay as soon as you get them in the container you are going to keep them in and each will lay about 200 eggs at a time, YES 200 eggs roughly per laying female. Provided all the eggs hatch that's 200,000 baby crickets. I have a nursery with thousands of baby crickets and no way my two dragons will go through them all before they die off so clever me, put another lay box in the adult cricket bin and more eggs were layed now hatching them. I am going to be overrun by baby crickets. My babies are doing well but good grief had I known, I would not have started with a 1000 adult crickets most of which were female ready to lay as soon as I set up the lay box and put the heat to the box. To set up for breeding and egg laying, get some eco earth and put it in a container and lay a screen over the top of the container, keep the soil wet, not sopping wet but wet, temps should be about 85 degrees. I have a ramp from the floor to the top of the lay box made from egg crate and the females instinctively go lay eggs, females have 3 prongs on the back end the middle one being black, they will position this into the dirt through the screen and will do a pumping motion to lay. Keep the lay box in the cricket container for about 2 weeks, then remove it and put it in a container of its own, and cut a hole in the top of the bin lid. Add a light so that the eggs stay warm and will hatch in about 2 weeks after that. You will see tiny tiny blackish things moving in the dirt, they will turn whitish after another week if they are going to change to their normal tanish color. Do not remove the lay box, the babies will climb out on their own looking for food. I keep wet sponge for the babies instead of water crystals, and leafy greens for them to eat on with orange cubes. Remember to keep the lay boxes wet but not sopping wet or the eggs will shrivel up.
You most likely will not see the eggs as they are laid in the dirt vertically but they look like tiny grains of white rice. When the lay box is has hatched out for about 2 weeks, I remove it from the nursery bin and empty the dirt into a shallow pie pan and set that back in so any remaining babies can make their escape before I get rid of the dirt in the lay box which I suggest doing outside over a garbage bag that can be sealed cause any remaining unhatched eggs may hatch and you will have baby crickets everywhere. You can then repeat the process as crickets are avid breeders. I put a new lay box in as soon as I remove the one going into the nursery bin. Good luck and hope this helps.
