How to breed Locusts

[cat500]

This is the whole setup.

Glass tank supported by lego feet, on top of a heat mat.
Lamp on Right Hand Side
Sand Box on Left hand side
Assortment of egg boxes, cress boxes and general mess in the bottom of the tank.

[pipster]

One of, if not the best locust breeding info sheet i've found and it really is not that hard to do

[cat500]

20 more nymphs emerged over night.

It looks like they prefer to hatch out when it's dark. Which makes sense.

Now for the tricky part of getting the babies into their own tank. The adult locust keep eating all the tasty fresh greens. I guess they're not really the paternal type !!

[reptileLover18]

iv just set up my own tank and 25 locusts are in, size 5's. they are quite quiet but always moving about every now and then i hear a little clicking noise, wat is this? thanks

[cat500]

My adults used to click, and I assumed it was them flapping their wings, but if your 5ths are doing this it isn't the wings.

A quick update on the breeding.

1) I must at least 200 nymphs and I know there are more to hatch out.
2) All the adults (20) have been used for food by a friend who has some larger lizards.

If anybody in the MK/Bletchly area wants to collect locust for £1 a box (bring your own box!) then message me.

[Optikal]

I've just bought 40 odd 5th instar locusts, set them up in a tank, heat mat, bug water and fresh greens. Now we play the waiting game....

[forteh]

After setting up the locust farm about 8 weeks ago Ive finally had one of them sucessfully lay eggs in the sand!

Hopefully give it a week or so and I should have some babies

[swinder]

I have a set up now with 16 adults in. They are mating away and laying eggs. The holes get filled in by other locusts. Hope this isnt a problem. Im going to take out the sand box once a week and place in a sepearte tank. Im using the tubs the locusts came in as sand boxes and they seem to be fine.

[Jim2109]

Originally Posted by cat500

The babies are hard to catch, so I'm waiting till they grow a bit before moving them into a new home.

just a thought, but would it not be easier to move the adults into a seperate tank once babies start hatching? then the adults can do their business in the 2nd tank, whilst the babies in the first tank grow a bit, then once the 2nd tank is full of babies switch the adults back to the 1st one again, and just repeat the cycle. all assuming that the adults arent dead by then anyway, which they probably will be. ultimately you could end up with a constant lifecycle going, with locusts ranging from all sizes ad just transfer the larger ones around as required.

ive been thinking about breeding some locusts, theyre crazy expensive to buy as the main food source for lizards when you compare their prices with crickets, and if i had a free supply of locusts i could do away with crickets! my water dragons much prefer locusts anyway, and locusts are too slow to escape, struggle to survive in a typical UK house anyway, and even if they do, they drop dead after a couple of months anyway. which means no irritating crickets running all round the house breeding.

i might try something slightly different to what everyone else has been doing. because at present i only want 1st and 2nd instar locusts for my baby water dragons. so i might buy a box of adults, get them breeding, leave them breeding until they all die. and then just use the babies until the supply gets low enough that there is only a few weeks worth left. then buy another batch of adults, get them breeding in a 2nd tank, and just repeat that process over and over. 3 growing water dragons eat a shed load of locusts per day (they eat a whole tub between them per day and sometimes extras) so i think il probably still struggle to have enough locusts to feed them all the time, so i shouldnt end up with a surplus of locusts. i dont like the idea of tons of giant winged insects living in my house lol. 10-20 is fine, 100+ is not!!!

[Aimo]

I'd guess its difficult to estimate but from say a single pair of adults how many off spring would you guess hatches each time around plus do they breed once then thats it or do they repeat, sorry if these are dumb questions but I've never tried breeding locust before.