Cricket Care

[Alkaline8214]

Recently I have become the proud owner of 2 Red eye tree frogs. When I started buying crickets I never realized how fast I would go through them and how hard it would be to find small crickets for sale in my area. The nearest area is about 2 hours from me. So I have decided to buy about 250-500 online. My question is how will I keep these little guys alive for my frogs? I'm going to setup a aquarium for them with coco husk soil. I was told that feeding them tropical fish food was good for them. Just need to know what other accommodations I need to make to have my crickets last longer and stay healthy. Also is their any way to make them grow slower since my frogs eat 1/8 inch crickets.... Thanks in advance.

[Kurt]

Yeah, not feed them, but then again that will lead to their deaths. You can feed them slided oranges, sweet potato, carrots, as well as commercial gut loading foods. The fresh fruit and vegetables will provide nutricition and moisture for your crickets.

[Paul Rust]

Try feeding them fruit flies until they get bigger and you get the cricket situation under control.

I keep 1000 crickets in a rubbermaid container with food and water.
Water is a petri dish with a sponge in it, crickets will drown in open water.
food is a mixture as follows.

Cheap cat food
Dry milk mix
Herptivite or other vitamin supplement

Put cat food in a blender: doesn't matter how much.
Add Dry milk mix: 10% by volume
Add vitamin supplement: 1% by volume.
Blend it all together until it is the consistency of fine sand.

If you look in my albums you can see my cricket bins. I lose very few crickets with this method.

[Alkaline8214]

Thanks for the info on food. What about light and heat? Do certain lighting and heating conditions determine the amount of growth in crickets. Do they require a certain temperature? I thought about the fruit fly but I kinda want to stick with crickets being that's what they have been fed even before I bought them. How old must crickets be before they start to have babies? Im sure if I order crickets online ill get a few adults in the mix as always. Is their any conditions needed before they will have babies? Sorry for all the questions lol. They all came to me as I typed Thanks

[Ebony]

Well if they are anything like Locusts they will need heating. Paul will be able to help you with raising crickets.

[Paul Rust]

Thanks for the info on food. What about light and heat? Do certain lighting and heating conditions determine the amount of growth in crickets. Do they require a certain temperature? I thought about the fruit fly but I kinda want to stick with crickets being that's what they have been fed even before I bought them. How old must crickets be before they start to have babies? Im sure if I order crickets online ill get a few adults in the mix as always. Is their any conditions needed before they will have babies? Sorry for all the questions lol. They all came to me as I typed Thanks

Light doesn't matter, they need heat. Above 70F is fine. To breed them they need mid 80s.
They can't breed until they are adults. An adult is a cricket that has molted 5 times and has wings. When they molt is dependent on food, water, temp etc. I would say about a month old. I just watch them for that final molt to find adults. We are actually working on this in our group and hopefully will have an article out soon.

[SethD]

Recently I have become the proud owner of 2 Red eye tree frogs. When I started buying crickets I never realized how fast I would go through them and how hard it would be to find small crickets for sale in my area. The nearest area is about 2 hours from me. So I have decided to buy about 250-500 online. My question is how will I keep these little guys alive for my frogs? I'm going to setup a aquarium for them with coco husk soil. I was told that feeding them tropical fish food was good for them. Just need to know what other accommodations I need to make to have my crickets last longer and stay healthy. Also is their any way to make them grow slower since my frogs eat 1/8 inch crickets.... Thanks in advance.

You might want to do yourself a favor and culture B. Lateralis roaches as feeders if you don't have a phobia about roaches. It is very easy to do and that way you can have a steady supply of various size feeders. B. Lateralis are better feeders than crickets nutritionally speaking, they do not make annoying noises like crickets, they don't smell nearly as much, they are easier to keep alive, and they don't climb glass or smooth plastic. Only males have wings and even males very rarely fly. The only down side is they do run pretty fast but that can be a plus too since all that movement triggers feeding in many species.

[Ebony]

Locusts dont smell or make noises either.

[Paul Rust]

Smell and noise aren't exactly a big deal. They are in a different room so they can make all the noise they want. I clean out the bins once a week. I get crickets out to feed every couple days, I don't stand there and smell them. Fruit fly cultures smell much worse than crickets. I can deal with a cricket loose in the house better than a roach.

[SethD]

Locusts dont smell or make noises either.

If I could get them in the states I would be more than willing to give them a try. They are not really available over here though.

[SethD]

Smell and noise aren't exactly a big deal. They are in a different room so they can make all the noise they want. I clean out the bins once a week. I get crickets out to feed every couple days, I don't stand there and smell them. Fruit fly cultures smell much worse than crickets. I can deal with a cricket loose in the house better than a roach.

Personal preference I suppose. For me personally though I can honestly say that if I had to raise enough crickets to feed my frog collection I would get out of the hobby. Various tropical roaches I find to be some of the best and easiest feeders available.

BTW escaped roaches in the house are not a big deal since it is mainly tropical species that are cultured. If it isn't kept pretty warm they will not breed. If they are not able to infest my house in TX they certainly wouldn't infest your house in washington state. Another nice thing about roaches is that it is possible to set up self feeding exhibits for some of your frogs with a bit of care. I have 4 southern toads in a 75g. that I haven't really had to feed for nearly two years. I just feed the roach colony which survives in an area of the tank the toads can't get to and as they venture out they are eaten. About all I do is catch a few roaches in the tank from time to time, dust them with supplements and make sure the toads eat those so they get enough vitamins. Other than that their food needs are pretty much covered.

[Paul Rust]

Personal preference I suppose. For me personally though I can honestly say that if I had to raise enough crickets to feed my frog collection I would get out of the hobby. Various tropical roaches I find to be some of the best and easiest feeders available.

BTW escaped roaches in the house are not a big deal since it is mainly tropical species that are cultured. If it isn't kept pretty warm they will not breed. If they are not able to infest my house in TX they certainly wouldn't infest your house in washington state. Another nice thing about roaches is that it is possible to set up self feeding exhibits for some of your frogs with a bit of care. I have 4 southern toads in a 75g. that I haven't really had to feed for nearly two years. I just feed the roach colony which survives in an area of the tank the toads can't get to and as they venture out they are eaten. About all I do is catch a few roaches in the tank from time to time, dust them with supplements and make sure the toads eat those so they get enough vitamins. Other than that their food needs are pretty much covered.

I have read about several different species, are these trade names and B. Lateralis is the most common? Are these the ones that live for a year? Yeah, roaches aren't exactly a problem here, lol. I wouldn't mind trying some. Do you have a link or a care article of yours that gives the basics for the ones you breed?

[SethD]

I have read about several different species, are these trade names and B. Lateralis is the most common? Are these the ones that live for a year? Yeah, roaches aren't exactly a problem here, lol. I wouldn't mind trying some. Do you have a link or a care article of yours that gives the basics for the ones you breed?

I have about six different species of roaches but dubia's and B. Lateralis are my main feeders with B. fusca being a distant third as a feeder for very large toads as adults get up to 3.5 in. or so. The other species are used as feeders primarily when their numbers start to get out of hand.

Some care info on lateralis...

B. Lateralis care sheet - Arachnoboards


http://blaberus.com/Documents/Blatta...sCareSheet.pdf

And some info on dubias...

http://blaberus.com/Documents/Blapti...aCareSheet.pdf

[Paul Rust]

Nice, thanks Seth. I was just informed by my girlfriend that if I get roaches I will be single. I guess I need a new girlfriend, probably shouldn't post any links for that though.

[Deku]

Nice, thanks Seth. I was just informed by my girlfriend that if I get roaches I will be single. I guess I need a new girlfriend, probably shouldn't post any links for that though.

It'd be funny if she was here though. Not to sound like a jerk. But you gotta admit that would be pretty funny. Also, since she hates roaches. Uhh why not hide them from her? Like you should hide em and get a really HUGE one and put it on her shoulder. :P Or on her head. XDDD

[UncleChester]

Thanks for the info on food. What about light and heat? Do certain lighting and heating conditions determine the amount of growth in crickets. Do they require a certain temperature? I thought about the fruit fly but I kinda want to stick with crickets being that's what they have been fed even before I bought them. How old must crickets be before they start to have babies? Im sure if I order crickets online ill get a few adults in the mix as always. Is their any conditions needed before they will have babies? Sorry for all the questions lol. They all came to me as I typed Thanks

At about temps ranging from 17C-26C it took my newly hatched pinheads about 3 months to grow to adults, breed and have babies of their own hatch. It was probably about 2 months before there were enough adults to get some serious egg laying happening. More heat should make them grow faster.

You might consider ordering a couple dozen adults at the start to speed things up, even though you're sure to get a few larger ones with your order. It could save you in the long run from having to order again if you run out of crickets before you are producing them reliably.

I keep my colony in a substrateless rubbermaid bin and the breeding adults in a smaller substrateless container that has a little (~250ml) deli cup filled with coco fibre for egg laying. This allows me to easily separate the eggs. No substrate also makes the big colony easy to clean, once a week I move all the furniture (egg cartons) to one side and have the heating pad under only this side. Everything alive soon wanders over and I vacuum out the other side. Turn the bin around and repeat.

[Tropicok]

Some of you know I have tried 3 times to hatch pinheads. This last try I took the sand/peatmoss medium home (having using the big crickets at the zoo as egg layers) for 10 or more days, no pinheads. I took the whole Rubbermaid bin and medium back to the zoo incubator and *****ed that I wasn't meant to raise babies of any sort. One day later the whole layer of eggs in the medium hatched. By the time I went back out for my workday all the pinheads were dead. My colleagues had a big laugh, said I just told them I wanted the crickets hatched, not kept alive. D**n it, I'm gonna try again.

[Deku]

Some of you know I have tried 3 times to hatch pinheads. This last try I took the sand/peatmoss medium home (having using the big crickets at the zoo as egg layers) for 10 or more days, no pinheads. I took the whole Rubbermaid bin and medium back to the zoo incubator and *****ed that I wasn't meant to raise babies of any sort. One day later the whole layer of eggs in the medium hatched. By the time I went back out for my workday all the pinheads were dead. My colleagues had a big laugh, said I just told them I wanted the crickets hatched, not kept alive. D**n it, I'm gonna try again.

Wow thats really harsh of them. xD Still kinda humorous(what they said). But anywho, why not use that method again, when the babies hatch put them in another container with just dirt itll be easier on them, also just plop in oranges, bananas, grapes, etc. To give them moisture and food. It may or may not work. Or like you can get the fruits put em in a blender and make them a "smoothie" which you can add calcium/vitamin powder to. Im pretty sure they would go for it. Just put in enough powder so its not so liquid that they can drown in.

[Paul Rust]

Some of you know I have tried 3 times to hatch pinheads. This last try I took the sand/peatmoss medium home (having using the big crickets at the zoo as egg layers) for 10 or more days, no pinheads. I took the whole Rubbermaid bin and medium back to the zoo incubator and *****ed that I wasn't meant to raise babies of any sort. One day later the whole layer of eggs in the medium hatched. By the time I went back out for my workday all the pinheads were dead. My colleagues had a big laugh, said I just told them I wanted the crickets hatched, not kept alive. D**n it, I'm gonna try again.

I will respond to this in our group.

[Alkaline8214]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I am much closer to keeping my crickets alive. lol