how do YOU do it!

[Reptile_Boy]

ok well i am sick of waisting so much money on reptile food and decided to give it a second shot of breeding my own food'
i would like to no how YOU! breed the following
1.crickets
2.woodies

idont want the internet stuff i wont to no how you do it personaly

cheers

damo

[mitchdiamond]

You don't really need to do anything to get Woodies to breed.Just have lots of adults and they will.Just give them fresh food and some paper or toilet rolls to hide in.

[Reptile_Boy]

what about heat? i got told youneed heat for both to breed

[Chris1]

i only breed woodies, like Mitchdiamond said u dont need to do anything, just get a heap of adults.

as for heat, if they get too cold they dont eat much and drop their egg sacks, mine only started doing that last week though so i moved tehm into the loungeroom where its a bit warmer and theyre doing ok again....

for food, i give them ground up cat food (or bearded dragon pellets teh night before they become dragon food, they only get roaches 1-2 times a week) and slivers of butternut pumpkin all over the egg cartons they live in.

[Clairebear]

Yeah Woodies are sooooooo easy! We just put them in a container and chucked them in a cupboard. They're thriving. I've been told neglect is the best way for woodies. We give our woodies carrot peelings and chunks of carrot and they lurve it. Well that's what they told me last time i asked them.

[Reptile_Boy]

any crickets out there?

[Clairebear]

APPARENTLY they're harder to breed cause they need certain amounts of daylight hours (which is fine if they just get kept out) but with Woodies you chuck em where you want. But there's probably way more people who have actually tried it out there. I think mine bred in my cricket keeper when we were feeding them more woodies than crickets. so many tiny ones in there. So maybe it's not very hard...

[reptyle]

keep the crix at a comfortable room temp. just have some egg cartons in there cage with some carrot, pumpkin, etc.
then get a chinese food container and fill it up with moist dirt/soil/sphagnum moss, etc, put the lid on and cut a little whole in the side so they can get in.
now you just add a heap of adult crix and your ready to breed. this is just how it worked for me. i looked in there one day and saw all these tiny baby crix in there, lol.
im sure there is a better way of doing it but hey, if it works it works, lol
cheers, ian

[Chris1]

i tried breeding crickets ages ago, i put moist soil in a chinese takeaway food container covered with flyscreen in the cricket tub and the crickets would lay in that, then eat thru the flyscreen and eat the eggs. so get a metaly one that they cant eat thru.
then every 5 days i'd take the container out, tie it up in a plastic bag and put it somewhere warm and dark till tehy hatch, tehn put teh hatchys in a seperate tub.
(which tehy escaped from so i gave up)

[Miss B]

We have just started breeding crickets and our first attempt was largely successful. We're only breeding them on a fairly small scale at the moment, just enough to feed two beardies.

Here is the method we used:

Set up a breeding tank.

We used a fairly small glass fishtank (around 400mm L x 250mm D x 300mm H).

For substrate, we covered the base of the fishtank with 2-3cm depth of 'Unprocessed Bran' - you can buy this stuff from the cereal aisle of your local supermarket. The home brand stuff is super duper cheap.

The crickets need food and water. But they drown easily, so use water crystals. A tub of 'Rainsaver' crystals will set you back about $7 but lasts forever. You'll find this in the gardening aisle of your local supermarket. The water crystals will need to be changed every few days. For food, we used slices of carrot and also a small dish full of Home Brand fish food flakes. The carrot will need to be replaced as it dries out.

Now, add crickets We bought a tub of 'Large' crickets - try to find a tub with lots of females. Female crickets are easy to identify as they have a large ovipositor (long stick-like thing) sticking out of their butt. They use it to lay their eggs. Males do not have them. We put fifteen female crickets and three male crickets into the fishtank.

Lastly, you need something for the crickets to lay their eggs in. We got a bag of Peat Moss from Bunnings and used it to fill a shallow chinese food container. Using a spray bottle, we misted the Peat Moss until it was damp all the way through (but not soaking wet). Place this tub into the cricket breeding tank and leave it there for a few days. Eventually you'll notice the female crickets venturing into this tub and laying their eggs. Once they are all done, which can take up to 48 hours or more, you can remove the Peat Moss tub.

Now you need to incubate the eggs. We use a reptile heat globe screwed into a regular desktop lamp. Place a lid on the chinese food container and make sure it has loads of small holes for ventilation. We used a thermometer to test the heat under the globe and placed the tub in a spot that kept it at a constant 29-31*C. Keep the heat on the tub 24/7. You'll need to check the tub every day - if the Peat Moss seems to be drying out, mist it with water to dampen it again.

Exactly two weeks after the first eggs were laid, our baby crickets began to hatch. We noticed them walking around on top of the Peat Moss. At this point we moved them into a rearing tank. The setup is pretty similar to the breeding tank - Unprocessed Bran on the bottom, a dish of water crystals, some sliced carrot and also the fish food. Place the entire chinese food container into this fishtank and eventually the crickets will make their way out of the chinese food container and onto the bran. Keep this fishtank in a warm spot as the baby crickets grow, and replace their food and water crystals as neccessary.

On a side note:- once the adult crickets have laid the first batch of eggs (and once those eggs are incubating), place a new container of peat moss into the breeding tank. The adults will lay another batch of eggs. Once they have been through two batches of eggs, I usually feed the breeding crickets to my dragons as they are not likely to live much longer anyway.

Once you've got your system down pat, you should have enough crickets on the go so that you can replace the breeding crickets with new crickets you have raised yourself. Get the cycle going and you'll never have to buy crix again

So yeah... sorry, it was kind of long-winded but that's how we do it. I'll try to post some pics tonight.

[Dragoness]

Thanks Miss B, I have a spare glass fishtank, so I think I will give this a try. Not that I really need that many crickets, as its only my gecko that gets them, and even then only a few a week at present. (however, if I had more, I would probably feed them to the dragons, but store buying them was too expensive) As for my woodies, ive forgotten about the poor things, they live in my chilly laundry, so dont think there'll be any breeding for awhile (not that it matters anyway, both of my dragons assure me its really not a time for eating, so only eat about once or twice a week)

Cheers

[peterjohnson64]

Reptile Boy - are you a member of Macarthur Herp Society? If you are then come along to a meeting and speak to Steve (CodeRed on here). He breeds thousands of crickets each year for his beardies. He has a lot more success with his methods than I do with mine (although I still manage to breed a lot).

[MrBredli]

How long does it take for hatchies to reach sexual maturity? (Crickets that is.)

[Miss B]

I think 6-8 weeks, from when they hatch.

[MrBredli]

Thanks for that Miss B.