# Cleaning out locust colonies



## Liamwilko (May 20, 2014)

I'm researching breeding locust as my live food bill is costing me a small fortune. I already breed Dubais but want to have locust aswell for variety.

My question is how do you clean these guys out without them jumping all over the place and escaping? I was thinking transferring them to another enclosure obviously, but catching and moving potentially hundreds of locust sounds very time consuming.

How do young guys do it or do you have any tricks or tips to making this job easier?


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

Liamwilko said:


> I'm researching breeding locust as my live food bill is costing me a small fortune. I already breed Dubais but want to have locust aswell for variety.
> 
> My question is how do you clean these guys out without them jumping all over the place and escaping? I was thinking transferring them to another enclosure obviously, but catching and moving potentially hundreds of locust sounds very time consuming.
> 
> How do young guys do it or do you have any tricks or tips to making this job easier?


I'm in the middle of setting up an old vivarium for my locust house. I am using one of THESE, VivExotic AX24, vivariums. I will be using a wire mesh between the top and bottom and will use a tray in the bottom section to collect all the droppings. This will be removed very easily every other day; switched with another tray; washed and left to dry. Couldn't possibly be simpler. Obviously this can be done on a much smaller scale.

What are you thinking of using to house them in?



Gavin.


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## Liamwilko (May 20, 2014)

I'm planning on using two set ups, one for the breeders and one for the feeders. Both will either be 2ft or 3ft vivs with a heat lamp at one end.

The lay boxes will be incubated outside the viv then introduced to the relevant group as needed. What I could do it cut away most of the bottom board and put fine mesh in its place so all the waste can drop through but stop them from escaping. 

Do you think this would work?


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## GavinMc (Jan 9, 2013)

Liamwilko said:


> I'm planning on using two set ups, one for the breeders and one for the feeders. Both will either be 2ft or 3ft vivs with a heat lamp at one end.
> 
> The lay boxes will be incubated outside the viv then introduced to the relevant group as needed. What I could do it cut away most of the bottom board and put fine mesh in its place so all the waste can drop through but stop them from escaping.
> 
> Do you think this would work?


That would work yes, just have a tray or RUB to catch everything. What you could also try is instead of putting the bottom strap under the doors get a much shorter( in height ) piece of wood and fix that to the sides so you can slip a tray under it. Or buy a length of plywood and use this as a the base, just drill it into place and cut most of it away and replace with mesh. This way if you need to sell the vivarium or use it for something else you will have all the parts still 100% intact.



Gavin.


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## Liamwilko (May 20, 2014)

How would I go about using the tray method you described? That sounded good and if I could keep the viv intact aswell fantastic.


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