Cricket raisng and stuff....

[Jeff_Favelle]

There was a thread here a while back that I never got around to posting to regarding raising your own crickets. In my mind and for mysituation its the only way to go. As we all know, breeding crickets is a cinch. Its the raising them that's hard. Well its not that hard. What's harder for me is to go buy crickets for 10 lizards that eat 20-40 crickets a day. That's around 300 crickets a day, or two $30 boxes a week! $240 a month for lizard food? No thanks.

We raise over 10,000 every 3 weeks here and we get them to adult size in 3-4 weeks (crank their temps to 85-90F and they grow like mad). Its the only way to go if you need more than a few boxes a month.

These guys are 2 weeks old and look at the size of them!

http://members.shaw.ca/westcoastmonitors/crickets.jpg

[honduranfreekk]

WOW Jeff an Albino in the cup on the left lol man i had 2 say that and ya im bored lol :)

[Jeff_Favelle]

OOoooohh I better go grab it and cross it with the pastel I kept back last generation!

Ha ha, too funny HF!! Thanks, that made my night!! :D

[Rebecca]

Hey jeff how do you get the crics to breed. Mine just die right off.

[Justin]

woha i want to start breeding mealies what do you think?

[Jeff_Favelle]

As soon as mine get wings (4-5 weeks) they start breeding. The females then lay eggs a week later for 2 consecutive weeks. When I know the soil is saturated with eggs, I feed off the adults. That way the crickets never die off.

[Kyle Barker]

A couple Q's. How do you heat the cage? And what are the conditions of the dirt(temp, moisture etc..). I SUCK* at breeding the damn things and am even worse at keeping the younins alive. Any help would be great, im tired of dealing with pet stores :)

Thanks,
Kyle

[Jeff_Favelle]

Cage is heated because it sits on top of the monitor cages in the monitor room (which has an ambient of 75F). I keep the soil damp by using a layer of wet newspaper on the bottom, and a layer of wet paper towel on the top. The soil stays at the right moisture levels until the eggs hatch, and then it usually dries out a couple of weeks later. Its a fine line, and is really cage-specific. I just keep an eye on them every 2 days or so. We produce easily over 10,000 crickets every month. Its easy man, but I would never do it in my house! No frickin' way!

[Kyle Barker]

Thanks, im going to give it another try. It is in my house but i figure all the loose spiders will kill all the escapees. Thanks again.

Kyle

[Jeff_Favelle]

Ha ha, or you could get some Alligator Lizards and Wall Lizards and set them loose. Or get a resident Tokay to get the escapees! Ha ha!

[Leona]

Jeff what do you feed your crickets? I have no problem breeding and hatching them, I just can't get them to grow very fast. Any help would be greatly apprieciated. Thanks Leona

[Jeff_Favelle]

Email me at:

jefffavelle@shaw.ca