Breeding Crickets
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| Lizards
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- Live Food |
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| Crickets are the main
food supply of most carnivorous and omnivorous lizards.
The bill for constantly buying crickets can add up quickly.
Crickets are the easiest insect food to breed, and if
you have the space, a good idea. |
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Housing |
| For a small crop of crickets,
a 40 gallon glass aquarium with a screen top is sufficient.
As your 'colony' grows, increasing the size of the aquarium
will be needed. Crickets need space as well as your lizards,
as they can get stressed easily. You must give them a
lot of standing room, so you must include empty egg cartons
and empty toilet paper/paper towel rolls. This allows
them a lot of standing room and hiding places. These must
be changes whenever there is a lot of excrement covering
them. |
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Food &
Water |
| You will want to provide the
crickets a wide variety of food. The more nutrition
you feed your crickets means the healtheir they are, which
in turn helps the lizard you are feeding. Provide your
crickets with an assortment of fruits including apple
slices, pears, small portions of oranges, slices of banana
and cut grapes. For the vegetable side, shaved carrots,
green leaves (avoid iceburg lettuce, it has no nutritional
value), sweet potato, broccoli, beans, etc. Dry dog/cat
food is also recommended as it is high in vitamins. You
can also purchase pre-made cricket food from you
local pet store to supplement the real food. Do not leave
standing water in your cricket aquarium, as crickets have
a habit of drowning in the smallest amount of water. You
can use a hamster water bottle, stuffed with cotton, for
the water. You should also mix a multi-vitamin supplement
into the water supply. |
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Breeding |
| Crickets will need a substrate
to lay their eggs. You can cut the bottoms off of large
pop bottles, but any small container will do. Will these
will a damp substrate, like peat moss or potting soil.
Keep the substrate damp, but not overly wet. |
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| Temperature |
| Keep
the temperature of the cricket enclosure between 76 degrees
F to 84 degrees F. |
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