sorting crickets by size

[DEW]

Here is a great page on cricket breeding from Fluker's teacher aids, cricket biology. It goes into great detail about lifecycle and breeding.
A quick rundown of the basics are; When the last instar molts and develops wings, called emergence, the cricket is called a day one adult. Females and males become sexually active at 3-4 days post emergence. females do not lay eggs until fertilization takes place. Once she has begun to oviposit (lay eggs) at about 10 days of age if a successful mating has taken place and if all the right conditions are met the eggs will start to hatch at 13 days if incubated at 86 degrees F. so, as you can see there are a number of variables.
For the full text;
http://www.flukerfarms.com/PDFs/Cricket.pdf
Hopes this helps.

As for the sorting. I left my containers with the holes in a larger container overnight. Make sure the holes are tiny, just barely large enough to allow the size cricket you are wanting to separate to exit container, otherwise larger crickets can squeeze through. You also may wish to use a pretty thick plastic container for the holes otherwise larger crickets will make the holes larger quickly. Make sure to provide afood and a water source in both containers, you may wish to provide a food source that is a more attractive in the outer container than what is provided in the inner container. I used a mixture of chicken starter, fish food flakes, frog food, and nori ( seaweed sheets) the same thing used in sushi rolls. these provide a stronger smell than what I usually provide but I went a little further and provided only a piece of carrot and a piece of potato for the food and the water source in the inner container, just basic necessities. This will encourage the smaller crickets to investigate the smell.

Good luck,
Dani

Sorry, forgot the question about how long to let females have access to egg trays.I experimented with several methods and what I found was; If I left the container in for a week or longer I had a greater variation in size in that batch than if I allowed only three days ( those just finished hatching) and all are close in size.

I also used a "screen" on top of the medium so that that other crickets were not burrowing through the media and eating the eggs. I got a much higher hatch rate using the screen. The problem with the screen method was getting just the right size hole and making sure it is cut to the exact size of the container if placed inside and directly on top of the media (touching) otherwise the females had to struggle to ovaposit if above the media at all and if the screen was not exactly the right size to fit tightly in the container then the other crickets were able to get under the screen. As for right size, I tried several and was amazed at what the crickets could squeeze through or get around. The only thing I found was the metal mesh top of an 30 gallon tank! Not exactly economical but what I had here and I was getting frustrated. You could also secure a piece of the metal mesh (or whatever else you find that works)over the top of your container just make sure the media is all the way to the top so it touches the mesh. Using this method I had a far larger hatch rate than without any restriction to access to the eggs by other crickets. This allowed me to have fewer crickets in the breeding colony or just a really large number of hatchlings per container, an enormous advantage when feeding as many little frogs as I am