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Old 06-05-2004, 04:56 PM   #1
ST1100
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Talking How to breed cricket to feed your Aro

Hi Guys,

As you guys are aware that the cost of feeder is on the rise and I would like share with everyone how to breed cricket at home to keep this hobby affordable.

What you need to breed cricket at home:

1) A plastic tank with cover minimum size 13" x 8" (the bigger the tank the better)
2) Burn soil $2 per pack, you can buy them from any nursery (share the pack of soil with a few friends)

3) A small dish for water (put a few pieces of pebble inside so that the baby cricket don't drown)

4) Cardboard Eggs holder and old newspaper

5) Small fish pellet (100g bottle about $6 can last about 6 months)

6) Distilled water (Guardian sell 1.5 litre for 70 cents)

Once you have everything in place, pour burn soil into tank (about 1/2 inch )
and sprinkle abit of distilled water onto the soil so that it is damp. Cut cardboard egg holder into half and place it in the tank, add a few pieces of old newspaper to provide shelter for the cricket. Than put the small dish(with a few pieces pebble) filled with distilled water into the tank. Buy 2 boxes of cricket and put them in the tank. That is all......

Feed cricket daily with fish pellet and top-up water when it is dry. Sprinkle distilled water on the burn soil twice a week so that the soil is soft enough for the female cricket to lay their eggs. It takes about 2 weeks before you can see baby cricket crawling around and about 2 to 3 weeks before the babies mature. Avoid using the cricket from this tank to feed your Aro for the time being as you want them to multiple. I can assure you that in no time you will have constant supply of cricket to feed your Aro.

Please note, the noise level created by the cricket at night are pretty loud (mating mah) so try to place your cricket tank nearer to the kitchen away from the bedroom.

Good Luck.

Last edited by ST1100; 08-11-2015 at 02:09 AM.
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Old 06-05-2004, 05:07 PM   #2
B2000
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Just a sharing. Dun forget to feed you cricks with carrots. Yosh ...
 
Old 06-05-2004, 05:34 PM   #3
ST1100
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Quote:
Originally Posted by B2000
Just a sharing. Dun forget to feed you cricks with carrots. Yosh ...
You are rite.... I do throw in a slice of apple once in a while and they love it but only problem is slice of apple will attract fruit flies. So in the last 2 months, I basically feed them with fish pellet and nothing else and they are breeding happy.

When you buy a box of cricket to feed your Aro, after a few days.... you will notice that some of the cricket have died, with friut flies flying around and there is this rotten smell coming out of the box. That is because the living condition for them in a box is only temporary. With a proper set up, the cricket will last longer and multiple faster. Moreover the only smell coming out of cricket tank is the smell of burn soil. So the setup for your cricket tank is a one off kind of thing, hardly any maintenance needed thereafter.

Oh ya....remember to change the old newspaper when it is dirty.

Have fun
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Old 06-05-2004, 06:37 PM   #4
jayde
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Default Nice Try!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ST1100
Well... that is why I put them near the kitchen. My wife initially hated the noise especially at nite but I told her the sound of cricket gives you the feeling of living close to nature and that if we were to stay in a big landed property with big garden, we will likely to hear the same cricket noise coming out from the garden....so she kind of excepted it.
Please note, the noise level created by the cricket at night are pretty loud (mating mah) so try to place your cricket tank nearer to the kitchen away from the bedroom.


Bro
One of the few good one I heard in this forum. LOL
Cheers
J.

Last edited by jayde; 06-05-2004 at 06:41 PM. Reason: non
 
Old 06-05-2004, 10:43 PM   #5
pcc
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Based on your info, buying a box of crickets should be able to start the breeding process and in less than a month, fresh supply of cricket. question:
1. How long will the first batch of cricket lives?
2. How many young crickets can be produced in a month?
3. In that process, in order to substain itself by reproducing, how many cricket can you feed per day so as not to endanger the self reproducing cycle?

With the above info, can calculate whether the effort is worth it on a long term basis. I would like to try as I believe it is worth the effort to gain some experience out of it. Thank you for sharing the info.
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Old 06-05-2004, 11:03 PM   #6
Ryan Red
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ST1100
Hi Guys,

As you guys are aware that the cost of feeder is on the rise and I would like share with everyone how to breed cricket at home to keep this hobby affordable.

What you need to breed cricket at home:

1) A plastic tank with cover minimum size 13" x 8" (the bigger the tank the better)
2) Burn soil $2 per pack, you can buy them from any nursery (share the pack of soil with a few friends)

3) A small dish for water (put a few pieces of pebble inside so that the baby cricket don't drown)

4) Cardboard Eggs holder and old newspaper

5) Small fish pellet (100g bottle about $6 can last about 6 months)

6) Distilled water (Guardian sell 1.5 litre for 70 cents)

Once you have everything in place, pour burn soil into tank (about 1/2 inch )
and sprinkle abit of distilled water onto the soil so that it is damp. Cut cardboard egg holder into half and place it in the tank, add a few pieces of old newspaper to provide shelter for the cricket. Than put the small dish(with a few pieces pebble) filled with distilled water into the tank. Buy 2 boxes of cricket and put them in the tank. That is all......

Feed cricket daily with fish pellet and top-up water when it is dry. Sprinkle distilled water on the burn soil twice a week so that the soil is soft enough for the female cricket to lay their eggs. It takes about 2 weeks before you can see baby cricket crawling around and about 2 to 3 weeks before the babies mature. Avoid using the cricket from this tank to feed your Aro for the time being as you want them to multiple. I can assure you that in no time you will have constant supply of cricket to feed your Aro.

Please note, the noise level created by the cricket at night are pretty loud (mating mah) so try to place your cricket tank nearer to the kitchen away from the bedroom.

Good Luck.


bro can explain what is burn soil, want to try to breed,
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Old 07-05-2004, 02:10 AM   #7
ST1100
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Default Life span of a cricket

Quote:
Originally Posted by pcc
Based on your info, buying a box of crickets should be able to start the breeding process and in less than a month, fresh supply of cricket. question:
1. How long will the first batch of cricket lives?
2. How many young crickets can be produced in a month?
3. In that process, in order to substain itself by reproducing, how many cricket can you feed per day so as not to endanger the self reproducing cycle?

With the above info, can calculate whether the effort is worth it on a long term basis. I would like to try as I believe it is worth the effort to gain some experience out of it. Thank you for sharing the info.

Your 1st batch of cricket will last a year if you don't feed them to your Aro.

Well the life span of a cricket is about a year and each female cricket can lay between 500-2000 eggs within their life span so the number of Nymph (baby cricket) produce by each female cricket works out to be 50-200 eggs per month. But please bear in mind that some of the baby cricket will die i.e. drown in the dish of water. So a box of cricket with 30 matured adult (15 male and 15 female) should produced around 1000 crickets a month.

Female crickets can be identified by it long structure (coming of the tail like a needle) called Ovipositor, which they use to plant into the soil to lay eggs. After keeping your crickets in the recommended set up tank for a few days, you will notice that most of the female crickets will start to plant thier Ovipositor into the soil to lay eggs. And within a week or so, you will find little crickets around the size of 3mm crawling around tank. Not to worry that your baby crickets will not crawl out of the tank cosz as long as they have food, water, soil and cardboard eggs' holder to hide. They will not leave their habitat.

Male cricket sings for 2 reasons....to call out to female crickets who are searching for male crickets to mate and to signal to other male to stay out of the way.

Crickets are said to foretell good luck. Their songs are said to bring blessing to all that are lucky enough to hear them.

Last edited by ST1100; 07-05-2004 at 02:36 AM.
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Old 07-05-2004, 02:34 AM   #8
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Default Burn soil

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan Red
bro can explain what is burn soil, want to try to breed,
Well bro, burn soil are soil found in area whereby the forest has been burn and that they are free of parasite and living organism and are consider one the best fertile natural soil. But I honestly suspect the origin of our so called burn soil that we buy from our local nusery cos I was told that the actual burn soil are very expensive. But never the less, the so called burn soil from our local nusery seem to serve the purpose well and I have inspected them carefully to find that they are truely parasite free. Beside, the cricket that we breed will eats up all kind of parasite.
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Old 07-05-2004, 02:58 AM   #9
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Default How much food to feed the cricket

Quote:
Originally Posted by pcc
Based on your info, buying a box of crickets should be able to start the breeding process and in less than a month, fresh supply of cricket. question:
1. How long will the first batch of cricket lives?
2. How many young crickets can be produced in a month?
3. In that process, in order to substain itself by reproducing, how many cricket can you feed per day so as not to endanger the self reproducing cycle?

With the above info, can calculate whether the effort is worth it on a long term basis. I would like to try as I believe it is worth the effort to gain some experience out of it. Thank you for sharing the info.
The amount of food (fish pellet) needed to feed the cricket very much depends on the population size of your tank. I give about 2 pellets per cricket a day. You can't really count them so most of the time you have to estimate.
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Old 07-05-2004, 11:54 AM   #10
ryzcris
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Bro...
I've bred crickets before and errmmm...
yah neighbours compained. Bred them in a two feet tank used almost the same method you mentioned. One thing different is that I do not place water dish instead I wet some toilet paper and place it in every few days I wet it again. Works pretty well.

Anyway I think I had easily a thousand or more crickets after a period of 3-4 months. Simply amazing. Oh and the soil will start to stink like shit. I had problems with changing the soil and not throwing away the baby crickets as well... too many to catch them all also... end up always sacrificing at least 50% of my brood.

Also do you have problems with mites infesting your crickets? It occurred slightly after I fed them with apples. Subsequently mites appeared whenever I over fed the crickets.

No big deal but simply gross to see so many of them.
Anyway I dun breed them as I no longer need them.
But for the rest of you... from experience, the noise of the crickets can be pretty ermmm...fantastic lah. A thousand crickets for me at that time can't remember how many decibels.

Good luck.

Anyone wanna know how to breed mealworms as well? Hahaha...
 
 


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