Cricket breeding question...

[fishbreeeder]

I am breeding crickets for my brother's tarantula and my chickens. I set up a bin with fish food, water, hides, a breeding soil box, and a heat lamp. I am getting the crickets today. I was wondering, do you leave the heat lamp on at night? Or do you turn it off so they can sleep? TYSM!!!

 

[SotaAquatics]

Is it an infrared bulb or daytime heat bulb? If infrared I would leave it on all the time. Crickets probably don't even need the heat unless you are keeping them in a room that gets below 70 degrees or you are trying to speed up their growth.

Side input... not related, do you have a small springtail seed culture you could put in there as well? I find springtails do a fantastic job of helping to keep things cleaner, crickets can get quite smelly quite quickly.

 

[fishbreeeder]

Is it an infrared bulb or daytime heat bulb? If infrared I would leave it on all the time. Crickets probably don't even need the heat unless you are keeping them in a room that gets below 70 degrees or you are trying to speed up their growth.

Side input... not related, do you have a small springtail seed culture you could put in there as well? I find springtails do a fantastic job of helping to keep things cleaner, crickets can get quite smelly quite quickly.

It's a daytime one . And my room is colder that 70 !

 

[SotaAquatics]

You are bold keeping them in your room, I had a leopard gecko for about 20 years, I grew up with crickets waking me up at night in my room! I would look at getting an infrared heat lamp for them, I think you will have better luck with that to keep heat and allowing you to sleep better. There are also ceramic heat emitters, they wont release any light but are more expensive. They also don't seem to heat quite as well as normal bulbs but you really only need to keep that bin 70-80 degrees. Ambient room light during the day will be plenty for what they need.

 

[fishbreeeder]

You are bold keeping them in your room, I had a leopard gecko for about 20 years, I grew up with crickets waking me up at night in my room! I would look at getting an infrared heat lamp for them, I think you will have better luck with that to keep heat and allowing you to sleep better. There are also ceramic heat emitters, they wont release any light but are more expensive. They also don't seem to heat quite as well as normal bulbs but you really only need to keep that bin 70-80 degrees. Ambient room light during the day will be plenty for what they need.

Thank you!

 

[SotaAquatics]

Good luck! They are pretty easy to breed if you haven't done it before. I accidently had one lay eggs in my scorpion enclosure once... was flooded with 100+ baby crickets for a month. What kind of chickens do you have?

 

[fishbreeeder]

Good luck! They are pretty easy to breed if you haven't done it before. I accidently had one lay eggs in my scorpion enclosure once... was flooded with 100+ baby crickets for a month. What kind of chickens do you have?

O my goodness! I have road island red!

 

[SotaAquatics]

I love road island reds! Great little personalities and so sociable. My mom has three right now, they roam around the yard during the day and come when called. More like dogs.

 

[fishbreeeder]

I love road island reds! Great little personalities and so sociable. My mom has three right now, they roam around the yard during the day and come when called. More like dogs.

Haha, ours also live in our yard. They wake us up to be released and sqaaaaack until they get their treats. Little brats. Ours don't like being picked up, but if we walk into the feeding area, they all run there!

 

[Ghostly]

good thing i found this thread! i was actually wondering this as well lol. so since mine is infrared keep it on all night?