How to Build a Cricket Box for Raising Crickets

People raise crickets for a few different reasons. While some may like to keep crickets as small, low-maintenance household pets, keen anglers will raise their own crickets to use as bait for their fishing hooks and lizard owners can raise crickets to feed their reptiles. Keeping your crickets safe and comfortable is a key element to raising them. Building a cricket box is an important way to help you achieve this, as a well-constructed cricket box will keep your insects warm, comfortable and make feeding insects easy.

  1. How Many Crickets?

    • Determine the number of crickets you will be housing in your colony to work out a suitably sized container for them. For example, if you are keeping less than 10 crickets, you do not need a container any larger than a shoe box. Remember, if you have a female cricket she will lay between five and 10 a day until she has reared about 100 crickets in total.

    Container and Setup

    • Set up a large fish tank, a trash can or a Rubbermaid container. Arb Reptiles warns that keeping crickets can lead to a nasty odor, which can be negated by keeping the container dry and keeping your colony alive. Foul odors do occur, however, so you should consider setting up your cricket box in a quiet part of the house that is not commonly used. Place an aluminum mesh screen over the top of any container that you use, as this will keep your crickets contained.

    Feeding System

    • Devise a feeding system for your cricket box. Ideally, your method of feeding your insects will not involve removing the lid of your container whatsoever as this prevents them from escaping. Buy a funnel with a wide (about 1 inch) tube and cut a small hole in the middle of your wire mesh so you can poke the funnel through. Even though it's in the middle of your container, your crickets can still get to it by climbing the walls and across the mesh, so you should leave sticky tape over this hole when you are not feeding your insects.

    Cleaning System

    • You need to keep your cricket box clean in order to keep them healthy and limit the malodorous nature of the container. Cleaning your cricket box is quite an undertaking, however, as you need to remove the insects from the container before cleaning. As such, you should cut a small flap in the side of a container, if possible. Make your flap about 2 inches wide and 1 inch tall. Use this flap, which should normally stay closed, to move crickets out into a temporary container, such as a shoe box. If you cannot cut a flap in your cricket box, you should try to devise a net to collect up your insects and house them in a temporary container while you clean.