Some pictures of my cricket colony

it was very easy to make. I just cut the tops out with a dremel and hot glued the screen in. 3 weeks now and pretty successful.

Setup


Pinheads


2 week old

What do they lay their eggs in?

it looks like there might be a lil pot of dirt in each enclosure

I have cocofiber in a small container in the adults cage. I then transfer it to the pinhead cage. Even after they hatch they like to stay in the container. So I keep it wet and I get a few stragler crickets that usually hatch.

So there are three cages: adult, pinhead and everything between 2weeks and 1/2inch

So the adults seek out the substrate? That's pretty cool.

Looks like you've got a nice system that's easy to clean.

i hate crixs so much but my dad wont let me rochs they wil invest the house he says bla bla bla

damn thos ruthless roaches constantly investing in our properties haha, sorry i know you mean infest

i breed my crix in a thing like this, i found the guide helfull
http://skylab.org/~chugga/cricket/

thats quit a good guide, i might try breeding crix, cause i cant be arsed having to trek p the pet shop every time i run out. the only thing is they STINK.

yeah they can stink but what you do is, order a bunch offline, cuz then if ur luck you will get some ( fuzzie wuzzies ) weird lil hair catepillar things, anyway these things eat cicket poop and dead crix, i have loads so my colony doesnt smell much, oh and having sawdust on floor of the enclosure masks the smell abit

cool. ive always seen "fuzzy-wuzzies" but i never knew what they were.

yeah there pretty odd lil things dunno there real name, but alotta ppl just call them fuzzy wuzzies so i just followed. But yea if you can get some they really do help keep them smelling a lil nicer

They're dermestid larvae. If they're the wrong species they'll eat your food and preserved bugs. Other species are used to clean the flesh off of bones for skeletal displays.

I tried breeding crickets but now I just can't be bothered.. Besides.. Running low on crickets means another trip to the pet shop... !

thanks mike i noe knw there real name but im still gunna call em fuzzy wuzzies

my colony rarely stinks. It did when I first started it up because a lot died. I originally didn't have enough ventilation. Just about 20 holes in the sides. After adding the huge screened opening they did much better. I clean it out one every week or so.

well i might have some pinheads myself. i put a few adults in a wee box and i saw one sticking that tube thing into the substrate.

scorpion111 wrote:

that tube thing

It's called an ovipositor.

i just found that out lol. i was looking up ootheca.

isnt a ootheca what matids keep there eggs in?

yep. roaches have em too.