Breeding crickets?

Question

I just bought 1000 brown medium crickets and 500 sub adult crickets for a breeding project and I have a few questions

What's the best egg laying substrate to use?

I have Vermiculite, Chinchilla sand and peat moss and was wondering what the best combination would be to use I have heard that putting vermiculite and sand together works well but I don't know the exact quantities to use

How many crickets should I expect?

I have heard a lot off different opinions as to how many eggs the females lay in their lifetime could anyone give me an accurate guess as to how many ill have from the 500 and 1000 batch?

How many containers will I need to house all my hatchlings?

I read that cardboard boxes can be used to house crickets anyone any experience with this? Also what is the max amount at sub adult and medium should be housing in my 21' long 8' deep 13' wide containers?

What are these caterpillar things I keep finding in my cricket boxes

Are they harmful or do they serve a purpose?

Answer 1

Try this forum, its brilliant, they got posts reptiles, geckos, snakes, and posts on keeping and breeding live foods like crickets and meal worms etc

http://www.livefoodshop.co.uk/forum/inde...

Answer 2

I bred crickets for several years but worked with smaller starter colonies of about 200 adults. That produced 10's of thousands of pinheads, possibly more, there are so many it is really hard to estimate. I always used vermiculite but any subtrate that maintains humidity will work.  Temperature and other conditions can affect the hatch rate. I would stick with plastic for the housing. Crickets are less able to climb up plastic and it is more hygenic. You should be able to house 500-1000 mediums in that size enclosure as long as you provide adequate surface area in the form of egg carton. The more they crawl over each other the higher the mortality,  good ventilation is also critical.

Those are dermestid larva that you are seeing, they feed on the dead crickets. They are essentially harmless but most people discourage their presence by trying to keep the colony free of dead crickets as much as possible.

This site is a good start for info.

http://www.anapsid.org/crickets.html

Answer 3

I asked at my local reptile shop once but never had the chance to try it out as of yet.

I was told that the best way was to fill toilet roll tubes up with sand and stand them upright in your cricket tanks. They also have to be kept warm (at least 80 degrees C) but you could basically leave them to it.

I am determined to give this a try myself too as i am sure it would save me a fortune!