Rearing Methods for Obtaining House Crickets, Acheta domesticus,1 of Known Age, Sex, and Instar

Abstract

The only major requirement in our method is a small room in which all the crickets are housed at a temperature of 30.5°C. The diet is a finely ground, modified chick starter mash. Water is provided via inverted plastic vials in gravel-filled petri dishes. Collected eggs hatch in 13 days and hatchlings are reared in glass aquaria for the 1st 3 or 4 instars. The remaining instar s are kept in modified rat cages. Last instar females are picked each day from the appropriate agegroup of crickets and kept separately in reusable onegal cylindrical cartons. These methods are easily adapted to obtain crickets of known age of either sex in the last 2 instars or the adult stage. Cumulative aging is also possible by simply noting the days from hatch for a group of crickets. Freely available standing water is superior to cloggable wicks. Moderate water deprivation, overcrowding, or slight temperature changes may drastically affect the life cycle duration and physiological parameters of the house cricket. Our procedure for cricket rearing emphasizes ease of maintenance and consistency of results.