The Lad's Research: How to Farm Crickets

How to Farm Crickets

The first step in farming crickets is to either catch some or buy them in a store. If you buy them in a store they are less likely to have diseases.   If you catch them in the wild, you want that ones hardest to catch, and you'll need to check them for mites, You will probably need 20-50 of them depending on the size of your container. Make sure you have a mix of males and females. You can see a picture of a female cricket here. 

Put them in your already prepared container.  To prepare your container, put 1cm of dry sand in the bottom of your container, now get one petri dish and use top as a water bowl (the top is not as deep as the bottom, making them less likely to drown your crickets if they fall in) and the bottom as a food bowl.  I like to use petri dishes since if they fall in the can easily get out.

Get another petri dish, fill the top and bottom with loose unfertilized, pesticide free, topsoil.   Now spray the dirt with a little bit of water enough that if feels damp.  The crickets will lay their eggs in here since their eggs need moisture. Now put in a egg carton if you can get one this will give them a spot to hide in.

Make sure that your crickets always have food, water and lots of space, if they don't have just one of these, they will start eating each other. Also make sure that the dirt filled petri dishes stay damp or the eggs will dry out and die. Try to keep your crickets in a warm room. Make sure that the container you're using has air holes or a wire mesh screen and that they can't escape. 

After two weeks your crickets eggs will be about ready to hatch, so take out the dirt filled petri dishes and put them in your other container prepared like the first, except this container will have no dirt filled petri dishes.  In a few days to 2 weeks the baby crickets will hatch.  They will be the size of pin heads, keep them in this container until they are full grown then put them back in with the other crickets. 

Make sure you replace the dirt petri dish after taking it out of your original container.

The lad asked me to edit the pictures he took and to add them in.  He also wanted me to tell you that crickets do best on a varied diet.  They can eat cat food, unspiced meat, greens, fish pellets, fruits and fish flakes.  Make sure their food doesn't go bad.

Also added by me...

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