Can you use dirt from your backyard for cricket eggs?

Question

i want to breed them cause i don't want to waste money on them anymore. also i need them to feed my leopard gecko, im just asking if i can hatch the eggs in soil from my yard. p.s tell me some hints too if you can

Answer 1

Yes, you can use the soil from your backyard to breed crickets. I do.

The process is going to take a while for you to get crickets to feed your gecko but it’s pretty easy and a lot of fun.

Go to the pet shop and get both male (males have two short pointy things on their back end, one on each side) and female (females have the short pointy things on each side but in the center they have a third extra long one on their hind quarters which is the ovipositor from which they lay their eggs) crickets.

You don’t really need the males to start off because the females will be ready to lay eggs the minute they are put into something that is conducive to egg laying.

Put about three inches of soil – yes garden soil is OK – in a small container – I use a 5 or 10 gallon tank with a mesh lid/cover.

Spray the soil so it is damp and make sure it stays damp but not wet or soggy. As soon as you add the female crickets almost immediately you will see them sticking their ovipositor into the soil – they are laying eggs.

I keep a plastic lid from a jar in the tank in which I have added a sponge that I have cut to fit the lid – keep it wet so they have water to drink but won’t drown in a bowl of water. You can also just add water to the lid and put a small rock in the lid that is almost the size of the lid so if the crickets fall in they will be able to climb out.

I feed mine dry fish food so they are “gut loaded” at all times or you can feed them greens/fruit/vegetables but keep the food in a similar lid as the water to keep the food clean and replace it regularly. Also keep the water fresh and the sponge clean.

In a few weeks you will start to see the tiniest little things on the soil surface which are the crickets that have hatched. They grow at a moderate rate but you can feed them to the gecko when they are the appropriate size. I would set up more than one “breeding container” because about every three or four months you will have to replace the soil with fresh soil – it gets nasty and can’t be cleaned. And you will be throwing out all the eggs that have been laid in that soil. Start one tank right away and wait a month or so to start the second so they are cleaned (soil changed and replaced) on a staggered schedule.

And there you have it – homegrown crickets.

Do an Internet search for “Cricket Culture” or “Breeding Crickets for Food”. You will probably get additional information. I just gave you the information based on what I do.

EDIT: By the way, as crickets die - remove them. If they get wet, they stink - otherwise the set-up doesn't have an odor. The live crickets will eat the dead ones but the food you will be providing will be more nutritious.

Good luck!!!!!!