Do you really need an incubator for crickets ?

[Ornate frog]

I dont really want an incubator but i want to breed crickets can you just put soil in the main tank and leave it in there and they'll hatch in there ?? Please awnser fast

[Lija]

It is a smelly nightmare to breed your own crickets, you might really want to think about it. You better breed dubia, are you allowed to have roaches where you live?

[Mentat]

First time I hear about needing an incubator to hatch crickets. A local shop breeds them to use pinheads as feeders. They only use a large cricket keeper with EcoEarth as substrate. They keep it in their reptile room at around 26C. Myself would not get involved with breeding and rearing crickets; it's just not worth it. As Lija mentioned, a roach colony is far easier to maintain .

[Xubby]

Probably too late to be "fast", but yes, it's possible. If you had a decent size cage, culled off adults to keep their population low, and other steps, you could probably pull off a one cage cricket system, but it'd be a lot of hassle and you'd have pretty low yields. If you have too many adults, cannibalism would be a big concern, both of the young crickets and the eggs.

As for an incubator, as they've said, it's not necessary. They're usually kept at a higher temp, either through an undertank heat, a heat lamp, or simply a high ambient room temperature to speed up development, but not because it's required. An undertank heater will shave weeks off of the time it takes them to mature. Incidentally, this is also true of most of the tropical roaches people breed.

If you really want a one tank system, I'd consider their advice and go with roaches. Crickets aren't that bad, but they'll definitely take a more effort and space than any standard roach. What sort of yield per week are you wanting with the crickets, out of curiosity?

[Ornate frog]

Sadly my mum wont let me breed Dubia roaches plus ive never seen them in cyprus (where i live) are locusts easy to breed ??
Ive set up the tub and im gonna see how it goes

[Ornate frog]

Probably too late to be "fast", but yes, it's possible. If you had a decent size cage, culled off adults to keep their population low, and other steps, you could probably pull off a one cage cricket system, but it'd be a lot of hassle and you'd have pretty low yields. If you have too many adults, cannibalism would be a big concern, both of the young crickets and the eggs.

As for an incubator, as they've said, it's not necessary. They're usually kept at a higher temp, either through an undertank heat, a heat lamp, or simply a high ambient room temperature to speed up development, but not because it's required. An undertank heater will shave weeks off of the time it takes them to mature. Incidentally, this is also true of most of the tropical roaches people breed.

If you really want a one tank system, I'd consider their advice and go with roaches. Crickets aren't that bad, but they'll definitely take a more effort and space than any standard roach. What sort of yield per week are you wanting with the crickets, out of curiosity?

I would need 6-7 every other day

[Mentat]

Search the forum; will find other threads like this one on rearing locusts (see post no. 7): http://www.frogforum.net/food-feeder...60-locust.html .