How to Raise Crickets & Mealworms
Pet reptiles love to eat crickets and mealworms, but purchasing mealworms and crickets can be a hassle--not to mention an unnecessary expense. Raising crickets and mealworms is easy. They breed readily and require little care. Simple plastic containers, bedding, and fresh vegetables are pretty much all you need to raise crickets and mealworms.
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Things You'll Need
- Crickets
- Mealworms
- Plastic containers with lids
- Rolled oats or bran
- Straight pin
- Small, shallow dishes
- Fresh vegetable chunks
- Calcium powder
- Cricket vitamin supplements
- Cardboard egg crate or empty paper towel roll
- Soil
- Water spray bottle
- Wheat bran or whole wheat flour
- Fresh potato slices
- Corn meal or chicken mash (optional)
Instructions
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Raising and Caring for Crickets
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1
Line the bottom of a deep plastic container with a two-inch layer of rolled oats or bran. Poke air holes in the container's lid using a straight pin.
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2
Place chunks of fresh vegetables, such as potatoes or carrots, into two small, shallow dishes. Place the dishes into the bottom of the container. Sprinkle the vegetable chunks with calcium and vitamin supplements made for crickets.
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3
Place a cut-up cardboard egg crate or an empty paper towel roll into the container to provide a place where the crickets can hide. If the crickets don't have hiding places available to them, they're more likely to fight and kill each other.
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4
Add the crickets to the container. Remove the vegetable chunks and replace them with fresh ones every two or three days to prevent mold from forming.
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5
Remove 6 to 10 adult crickets and place them in another plastic container lined with an inch or two of moist soil for mating. Add two small dishes of fresh vegetable chunks to the container.
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6
Moisten the soil daily using a spray bottle filled with water. After one week of mating, remove the crickets and place them back into the first container. The female crickets should have laid their eggs in the moist soil. After about two weeks, the eggs should hatch.
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7
Add pieces of egg crate or empty paper towel rolls to the breeding container, as well as food for the baby crickets. When the crickets are three weeks old, you can return them to the first container or to another container lined with rolled oats or bran.
Feeding and Care of Mealworms
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8
Line a plastic container with a one-inch layer of wheat bran or whole wheat flour. Add potato slices to the container for a moisture source. Replace the potato slices with fresh ones every two or three days.
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9
Place your mealworms into the container. Keep the container around 77 degrees Fahrenheit. In about three weeks, the mealworms will turn into grubs and then into beetles.
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10
Remove the beetles from the container and place them in a second plastic container lined with the same substrate and potato slices. Keep the container in a dry place. The beetles will mate and then die after two or three weeks. Each female beetle will lay 500 or more eggs.
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11
Watch for the tiny mealworms to emerge from the eggs. Replace the potato slices as soon as they begin to dry out.
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1
Tips & Warnings
Instead of using wheat bran or whole wheat flour as bedding and food for your mealworms, you can use cornmeal or chicken mash.
Don't be alarmed if your mealworms stop eating and drinking during the pupae stage. This is very normal.
Make sure you use a tight-fitting lid for your cricket container, and don't make the air holes larger than the size of pinholes. Crickets are notorious escape artists, so you'll need to take extra care to keep them contained.
