Please tell me your opinion

[Greenlove]

I'm going to use the recipe that Paul Rust uses to feed his crickets. Plus, red potatoes, romaine and raddichio lettuces, spinach, apples, cabbage, carrots and red grapes (they devour the red grapes so I hope this is a good food item for them). Is this an acceptable diet to culture crickets on? Or should I incorporate more variety? This is my first attempt at raising crickets and I want to be successful. My crickets are only about five weeks old so I'm trying to make them as healthy as I can so they will lay an abundance of eggs. Thank you very much for your input.

[Jace]

I think you nailed it right on the head. Between Paul's awesome cricket recipe and your added fresh fruits and veggies, those crickets are going to mass produce and be in gutload heaven. Best of luck and let us know how it goes!

[Greenlove]

Great!! That's what I wanted to hear! It will be awhile before I know the outcome but I will definitely post the results.

[Greenlove]

I have EGGS!!!! Lots and lots of eggs!!!! YEAAAAA..OK, now that i got that outta my system. Just wanted to give an update. I took out the egg laying substrate, which looks to have hundreds of eggs, last Saturday. I have kept it around 80-85 degrees, but still no pinheads. I spray it about every other day so it stays moist but not soaked. I hope I have done everything right. I thought they would be hatching by now.

[Paul Rust]

Sounds like you are on the right track!!

I leave my egg substrate in the adult bin for 7 days and then replace it with a fresh one and put it in the incubator. Usually it takes 1 or 2 days before they start hatching and continues for 4 or 5 days.

[Greenlove]

Sounds like you are on the right track!!

I leave my egg substrate in the adult bin for 7 days and then replace it with a fresh one and put it in the incubator. Usually it takes 1 or 2 days before they start hatching and continues for 4 or 5 days.

Thanks Paul. Ya, hopefully mine will start hatching soon. I left the first egg substrate in their for a week when I first started to see them digging around, but I'm not sure how many days they were laying. They just recently become of breeding age. I have about 450 adults in the breeding bin. I know that it's a lot but i was worried I wouldn't get enough eggs, I think I'm going to be overrun when they do start hatching, *sigh* I'm such a newbie at this.

[Paul Rust]

You are going to have a bunch lmao!
That's fine because the babies take over a month before they are old enough to move into the next bin. Also, what happens when you replace the adults with new ones is that they are not always ready to breed, as you mentioned. The first week is usually a bust with no babies, but the next one will have thousands. I empty the breeder 3 times a day sometimes because there are so many. I'm glad you are having fun with this, I find it enjoyable as well.

If you find any better ideas while you are figuring it out, please let me know and we can add them to the Care Article.