My loctust set up

[swinder]

Ok willdo. I shall try the plastic container to start with. There is only a dozen or so in there.

Will have to look at other ways as well

]Thanks

[forteh]

As an alternative spin....

I collect each batch of hatchlings (about 30-50 at a time) with the pooter and dump them into a cricket tub with bran substrate and a strip of egg carton and feed them twice a day with suitable sized bits of spring green. I keep them in the nursery (the right hand side of my farm box) with a heatmat at about 75-80*F, Ive not had any problems with moulting or mortality.

I keep them in there until 3rd instar (about 20mm long) at which point theyre starting to get a bit crowded. Occasionally Ive seen the start of condensation in the tub, at which point theyve been immediately transferred into a large flat growing on faunarium and put onto a heatmat at 85*F floor temp. They then get fed as needed and hoovered out every week (using jims 'tipping all the crap into the corner and pulsing the hoover button' technique) and will go onto grow to adults.

I dont use any substrate in the faunarium but put 5-6 loose strips of egg tray in there. Once your hoppers are getting much above 3rd instar they will need more height than the egg tray can provide for moulting, at this point I use a full square sheet of egg tray and it wedges nicely into the large flat at an angle and gives loads of room for locusts to moult all the way through to adult. IMHO the maximum number of adults in the faunarium before needing to harvest them is about 25-30, any more than that and they can suffer from humidity problems.

It is important that you remove any dead locusts from both the farm and faunarium as they smell orrible and you risk killing the whole colony form disease/increased humidty from the rotting body. I dont bother cleaning out of the hopper tubs, (if you have loads dieing then transfer them into a fresh tub) the bran usually lasts until theyve moulted enough to go into the faunarium.

I have lost huge slews of hatchlings between 1st and 2nd instar (about 600) before now, they were kept at room temperature and grew very, very slowly - Ive found that heat and fresh food is the key for raising hoppers

[swinder]

Your a star with information. It was great getting up this morning and seeing all the little ones inside the tub. The ones i though had drowned i put on a lid infront of some heat and they all dried out and came back to life. Perfect. So thats 20 hatchings so far from batch 1. See what happens to night and see if any more hatch out.

Thanks for all the help again..

[forteh]

The hatchlings are tough little buggers, I was in the shower the other week and for some reason looked down, bugger me sideways theres 2 hatchlings in the water! Being the good caring dad that I am, I fished them out and put the on the side. Finished the shower and both were up and about without a problem, put them into my main farm and Im pretty sure theyre both 3rd instar now

edit: not sure what your arrangements are with the incubating tubs. I put a bit of plastic bag and elastic band it onto the top of the pots, that way it retains moisture (sometimes need to take it off and shake some drips off) and it stops the little ones going all over the place. Once I have some hoppers bouncing around underneath the plastic I put the tub into a 9L rub with the lid adjar just enough for me to get my hands in an pop the elastic band off. That way its easy to spot and catch all the hoppers with the pooter, I get very few escapees that way

[swinder]

Just had another 30 hatch over night. Into a new plastic tub they go. At this rate Im going to have hundreds of plastic tubs. good job i have saved them all from my live food. This is all from Week 1 laying. Week 2 has started to hatch yet and week 3 needs to go into the incubator now.

[forteh]

I got about 900 in my 1st solid month of hatching, unfortunately I didnt have time to dedicate to the hatchlings and lost most of them to bad husbandry

Hope youve got some hungry mouths to feed