Hello, I’m omzn.
This article is for the 16th day of あくあたん工房 Advent Calendar 2022.
Following the story on the second day, I would like to talk about the cricket, live bait of the Leopard Gecko.
Leopard geckos will eat artificial feed, but will also eat live and frozen crickets.
They are moody, sometimes eating only artificial feed and sometimes only crickets.
Crickets can be collected in the wild, but it is also easy to buy farmed crickets from a cricket farm.
The most famous farmed crickets are the “European house cricket,” also known as the “Yeko” species.
It seems to originate from Southwest Asia, and is widely used as a pet and for food all over the world.
They are available at reptile stores for about 15 yen each, and at mail-order shops for about 5 yen each.
They can reproduce all year round and become adults in a few months, so even amateurs can cultivate them if they are well cared for.
If the food grows on its own and the supply keeps increasing, there is nothing more satisfying than this.
Every Leopard Gecko owner dreams of cricket farming at least once.
Well, omzn, as usual, decided to try to farm crickets.
To start with, I purchased 400 adult crickets from an Internet store, 200 of which I immediately froze and 200 of which I will keep in a cage.
The cage is not equipped with any bedding for easy cleaning, but a hiding place made of toilet paper cores, a water supply container, and a container of soil for spawning.
Here is a picture of the cage with 200 crickets in it.
Females begin to lay their eggs in the soil at once. The eggs are collected so thickly that they protrude from the soil.
The 200 crickets are captured and frozen little by little, and eventually all the crickets are frozen so that only the eggs remain.
The eggs are then kept at a constant temperature and humidity for two weeks.
Two weeks later, the eggs hatch. The larvae, which have a body size of about 1 mm, emerge at a rapid rate.
Growing them until they are large enough will ensure a sufficient number of frozen crickets, and enough will remain to lay eggs.
Here we have taken the first step toward a homemade cricket farm. Great!
In the cage of the leopard gecko, there are crickets that I tried to feed as live food, but they successfully escaped and hid. They can lay eggs, too.
There is plenty of soil. Even if they are preyed upon, the eggs will remain. The temperature and humidity are well maintained.
Naturally, after about two weeks, the larvae hatch in the cage.
Oh, there is a small larva near the water fountain. How cute!
We can breed crickets inside the leopard gecko cage, can’t we?
Here is a scary story.
Cricket cages are designed in such a way that crickets cannot climb out of them, so even a first instar larva of 1 mm in length cannot climb out.
However, this is not the case in the cages of the leopard gecko. There are masonry and driftwood reaching to the ceiling, a mesh ceiling, a door, and many gaps for ventilation.
As I write this, I feel something moving at the edge of my vision….
No way.
No, no, no way.
Even if the larvae escaped, there is no food or water in the room, so the environment must be less than a desert for crickets.
There is no way they could become adult crickets.
By the way, what is the name of these crickets?
“European HOUSE cricket”
No, no, no, no, no, no, no way.