As part of the Femto-Farm (more on that later) I wanted to have another go at cricket-keeping, which would require setting up our cricket habitat again, as I did in the original articles (See here), but some things have changed.
The Cricket Habitat
The habitat is one of the original ‘totes’ I bought to raise crickets, it had been sitting in the shed for a couple of years so I had to clean it up, but the duct tape that I had used to keep the fly wire in place over the ventilation holes had completely let go and just about fallen off, so I removed it. To make sure it remained secure in future, I replaced it with black cloth tape that was pushed firmly into place, leaving no escape routes!
I was never really happy with having the crickets living on the bare plastic bottom of the tote, it seemed uncomfortable to me (not that I am a cricket but, you know) plus the frass seems to accumulate quickly and be difficult to remove. I decided I needed a substrate to go in the bottom of the habitat, the main reasons being –
1. It would retain moisture and thus maintain humidity levels, which had been an issue with the previous set up.
2. There would be an increased comfort and warmth retention over the hard plastic bottom.
3. It would provide a place for crickets to hide in and also lay eggs although I still had the damp coarse sand in a bowl for the females to lay eggs in if required.
4. It would absorb the frass.
So, the next question was, which substrate to use? There are plenty of options including paper towel, newspaper, bark, wood shavings, cocopeat or sand. I chose the last two to mix together to form the substrate. I chose them because I had them both on hand, which helps, and figured the cocopeat would retain moisture and keep the humidity up while the sand would prevent the mixture being compacted and difficult for the crickets to dig in.
I mixed them in a 1:1 ratio by volume (using 4 takeaway food containers full of each component) and then mixing by hand, which gave me a layer of 25mm to 30mm in the bottom of the habitat.
Egg containers make a great place for the crickets to hang out
It will still need to be replaced regularly, so it will be interesting to see how long it takes before replacement is required. When I do changeover the substrate, the old stuff will go straight into the compost.
Food and Water
The food remained the same (a mix of 1:1 wholemeal flour and milk powder and added lettuce or silver beet leaves) but the original container lid I was using to put it on had vanished so I picked up a couple of square ones out of our recycling bag and placed the food mix and some lettuce on as a “welcome to our place” for the new crickets.
Water is another matter. I did struggle with this a bit last time and eventually settled on keeping damp sponges and surplus menstrual pads soaked in water. Since these crickets are adults and there are no tiny ones (yet) one idea I came across was to use a small chicken waterer (which I also had on hand from previous quail experiments) with absorbent fabric in the bottom to soak up the water and keep it available for the crickets. The advantages of this are that there is not enough water in the bottom for the crickets to drown, and you don’t need to check it every five minute to make sure the cloth is still damp. Just a quick look in the top to confirm the waterer still has some water in it is all that is required.
Locating the habitat
The original place where I kept the crickets was in the garage, and that is where I will keep them this time too. I did struggle finding a place previously that was not in the way in the garage, and I wanted a place up off the cold concrete floor that was easy to get to and could be moved around.
To fulfill all of these requirements I have set up a mobile set of shelves that works really well. At the moment the cricket habitat occupies the middle shelf, and the crickets seem reasonably happy with that, and so am I.
Obviously it is still early days with the new set up so we will have to see how it goes, but so far things look good!
