Livestock

Introduction

I have been interested in raising what I would call ‘micro-livestock’ for quite a while, but doing the research and overcoming inertia has meant that it is only recently that I actually did anything about it. As a first foray into such an endeavour, I have picked crickets. I picked crickets for a number of reasons –

1. They don’t take up much space.
2. Breeding stocks are cheaply and easily available
3. The a have a good feed conversion rate (defined as “a ratio or rate measuring of the efficiency with which the bodies of livestock convert animal feed into the desired output”. In this case the desired output is cricket mass)
4. They are easy to provide for in terms of food and housing
5. They provide good protein as animal (chook) feed or human food
6. They taste good roasted!

I also wanted to set up my cricket keeping enterprise so that I could rear the crickets using resources which I already had on hand, and at least some of which I could produce myself. I also want to set it up such that I was able to generate a continuing supply of insect protein for the chooks and, dare I say it, us.

When I say ‘us’, what I really mean is ‘me’. Linda has made her policy on insect consumption known both regularly and emphatically, but I’m sure once she sees me enjoying a healthy, nutritious and tasty meal of crickets she will change her mind. Maybe.

Obtaining Our Cricket Stocks

Angie and Deniz have a shed up the back of their place for tools and such. Also in the shed were some cardboard boxes, and these had become inhabited by crickets, but I was too slow off the mark and by the time I had gotten my crap together they had already become chicken snacks for their chooks. I designed a cunning cricket trap, which I deployed in several areas around our yard with zero success, so either the trap was rubbish or we have a deficit of local crickets.

So, I gave in and bought a box of crickets from Petbarn, where they keep them for lizard owners to use as feed for their pets. For the princely sum of $6 I bought 30 large (what I assumed to be adult) crickets. I was working on the idea that these would be breeding stock and my numbers of crickets would increase exponentially over time, and this does seem to be somewhat the case.

Accommodation

Now that we had the livestock, I needed to put together some accommodation for them and a relatively small amount of research suggested that, in the American parlance, what we needed were ‘totes’ of around the 70 litre mark, depending on the numbers of crickets to be kept. Great info but what on earth was a ‘tote’? After a bit more research it turned out that what they called a ‘tote’ I called (far more descriptively) a ‘plastic box wheelie thingy for storing stuff in’.

I seems fairly important to have at least two totes, so that the crickets can be transferred from one to the other for cleaning, so that the frass (the technical term for cricket crap) can be removed before it builds up too much. I didn’t have 70 litre totes but had two 50 litre ones and they seem to be working OK so far. I bought a third for subsequent generations.

To make a tote habitable (by crickets) the most critical thing is to provide ventilation. This is done by cutting holes in the top of the tote and then covering the holes with metal fly wire to prevent escapees, it seems the crickets can chew through the plastic stuff. So that is what I did, using a 70mm hole saw I cut three holes and then taped some aluminium fly wire I had over each of the holes. This seems to be working so far.

I have also seen the idea of running some tape around the inside of the tote, just below the lip, to provide a very slippery cricket no-go zone, and so prevent escapees, but so far this has proved to be unnecessary.

Also, to provide a more comfortable habitation for the crickets, it is customary to place egg cartons into the totes as a place for the crickets to secret themselves when not eating or drinking, presumably they become the cricket equivalent of party central. The egg cartons, particularly the bottoms have a good lot of surface area for the crickets to crawl over, are absorbent, easy for the crickets to climb on and are readily accessible and, at the end of their life, compostable. Family members have proved amenable to donating them to us.

Feeding

As mentioned previously, I wanted to be able to feed the crickets from what we have hanging around. The basis of my feeding is a 1:1 mixture of freshly milled organic wheat flour and skim milk powder. To that I add torn up leaves from lettuce, silver beet and cabbage growing in the garden and also some slices of whatever citrus is fruiting at the time. The citrus contributes sugar, water and a nice fragrance to cover the cricket crap.

I place the food, except for the citrus which goes directly on the floor of the tote, on the upturned 175mm lid of a takeaway noodle container. I place the flour/powdered milk mixture in the centre and smooth it out to increase the surface area of the mix, then arrange the torn leaves on the lid around the outside of mix. I check the food supply daily and have been replacing it at least every two days, although the crickets have grown to the stage where the leaves now require daily replacement.

Water

Due to the fact that very young crickets (referred to a ‘pinheads’ a term I find very disrespectful!) will easily drown in liquid water, they need for the water to be suspended in another medium, but still be available to them. My immediate thought was to use the readily available cellulose cleaning sponges, I figured that they would be the safest being made from a more or less natural material. Unfortunately during my researches I discovered that, to keep them from rotting away and extend their service life they are loaded up with all sorts of chemical nasties and so were not the answer I thought they were.

I did some more digging and found that synthetic sponges are often used, but I didn’t have any. As a stop gap, I have been using surplus menstrual pads which are no longer needed in the household, cut into two or three pieces and soaked in water. They seem to work very well. During continuing research I also found that cocopeat (which I did have) is also used because it is good at holding water and keeps the cricket space humidity up. I now use both of these techniques to keep the space and the crickets hydrated.

Part 2 - Temperature maintenance and breeding

Part 3 - Cleaning and Harvesting