# Locust breeding attempt



## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Hello my fellow RFUKers,
long time no see. Not been focussed on reptiles past few years due to other life commitments but now I have been given a bearded dragon which I was hoping to feed on roaches but he's a fussy bugger and only wants locusts.

Not an issue as I am a keen insect breeder but even I am getting a bit impatient with these guys.
The annoying thing is how little information there is on locusts and how little people seem to have experimented keeping them.
Some people swear by a grass and bran diet, whereas others go for cabbage and vegg.
Some studies have shown that a dry diet can be better than fresh, especially cost wise for mass breeding but no real info on what dry food to use. I've been wondering if horse grass pellets would be any good as their diet seems to be very similar to a horses diet just like a cockroaches diet is very similar to that of a chicken.
Anyway I seem to be doing ok on cabbage and oats (the poor mans bran which seems to be working but this is partly experimenting)

Then again maybe I do need some bran because my locusts are not laying any eggs :bash:

I read from one person that locusts can breed in complete darkness. Nobody else has confirmed this. I have been giving mine only 3 watts of light for 12 hours a day. They are mating with this but no eggs yet.

Been very tricky to get the temperature right without wasting more electricity than its worth breeding them but I've compromised on 35 watts + 3 watts of light. It was possible to do it with a 25 watt heatbulb but my insulation box started melting a bit as it was built to size without thinking of space for a heatbulb.. so I went back to heatmats. 

I would recommend a 25 heatbulb over heatmats, 25 watts could generate slightly more heat than a 20 watt and 15 watt heatmat together.

Haven't got any pictures, I might add some if people are interested at all.

Just another guy trying his luck at breeding some locusts and like said surprised at how little info I could find.

Even the time frame from them mating to the females laying eggs seems to be wrong. I witnessed my first mating 7 days ago. No eggs yet, just some empty holes in the soil.

So yeah just playing the waiting game at the moment. Waited 2 weeks for them to mature, then another month before any mating has happened. Guess I'm still on schedule.

Just wondering if the coco fibre I am using will be any good. Again very little comparative info between dirt, sand, vermiculite, wood pellet cat litter (apparently), and coco fiber. I went for coco fibre only because vermiculite has gotten pretty expensive. Decided to wash the coco fibre after 7 days of no eggs as it is known to contain salts so yeah as you can see I am getting impatient now.
So wish me some luck, I'm hoping to see some eggs tomorrow.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Me again. Not sure if anyone is reading this but I found some eggs. Not where they were supposed to be and they look a bit dark to me. Anyone with experience know if they look ok? I'll know in 17 days but thats a long time again.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

I got a bit impatient waiting so I stuck the eggs in the microwave for a bit and an hour later some hulk locusts have started hatching


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Caught a female laying some eggs, hard to tell in the picture but her bum is in the sand. 
Out of my last 30 odd locusts I got 5 females.
All 5 locusts laid an egg pod between 1st and 3rd of February.
Now a week later as expected they are laying their second egg pods.

These pods take 17 days to hatch at 28 degrees and 12 days at 32 degrees however my incubation box only goes up to 28 degrees. A couple of eggs took as long as 20 days to hatch on my test run.

I think 1 locust has died from non age related death.

I still need to see how many babies are in a pod, from my research I gather 10-30 eggs in a pod.

On my test run with an extremely old locust that died 3 days after laying eggs, 9 babies hatched.




















ps: this is the best guide I could find if anyone is interested http://www.birdcare.com.au/locusts.htm


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

I was kinda hoping for some response on this post which is why I made the hulk comment earlier on.
Just as a reminder, sticking animals into the microwave will kill them, even locusts... 

So anyway I got bored of green locusts so I made the next lot turn black, here are the next babies.


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## Hog (Feb 11, 2014)

Really interesting thread and link. 
Thanks for sharing.
I'm planning on keeping bulk amounts of xlarge hoppers/locusts fed on greens and oats and heated for the wife's horned frogs.
Was hoping they'd breed, or us it more scientific than hoping ?
Totally new area for me.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Hi antaresia,
thx for reply :2thumb:

After reading how some people scrub their cabbage and maintain perfect hygiene I thought it would be harder but I haven't needed to clean my cabbage and generally haven't found it too hard.
I seem to get more locusts dying from them fighting over females than anything else. Stupid buggers do some mad acrobatics that cause the egg crates to collapse and crush a locust or two...
It's a learning game lol.
The only annoying thing is that they do need daily care. And a lot of space. And a lot of heat. 30c during day and 26c at night.

One cool thing I have discovered is that you can change their colour depending on their surroundings, I know they can turn yellow, green or black.

But they do smell a bit. You missus will not put up with them being in the house.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

hello people,
thought I'd give an update.

Ok so first to clarify, in my pictures you can probably see me using sand - sand is not very good and i never really used it, only started topping off my coco fiber with sand but that isn't needed. Coco fiber is the best medium to use. You can soak it and it will stay moist for the next month without drowning the eggs. I've had up to 30 eggs hatch per pod in coco fiber which I think is good.

Also locusts can lay pretty deep so I was using containers that could accomodate this, about 12 centimeters deep however incubating these deep containers is far more annoying than shallow containers. I have since experimented using the perforated containers that locusts are sold in pet shops which are perfect for incubating with the lid on (prevents hatchlings escaping too).
Now they are far too shallow however so far I am 90% certain this does not matter. The locusts just lay in a bend and still manage to lay their eggs. I am still confirming whether a shallow dish is as good as a deep one but for the space saving and the fact that these containers give good ventilation to the coco I think they are better.

Also I must confess that by now I think all my original Adults have died(have still got 2 replacement batches from petshop). This is too soon in my opinion, they should have lived another month. I cleaned the adult cage and disinfected it. No deaths in the baby cages yet except a squashed one I found in the lid today. RIP little bugger.


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## Shellsfeathers&fur (Jan 18, 2009)

Very interesting - thank you for posting and regularly updating.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Morning,

Starting to run out of space now. I've got 250+ babies and still getting at least 100 new eggs per week atm.
I've got 4 females from my second lot of adults that have been laying for a week or so and my third batch of locusts(bout 20) is starting to turn into adults now.

Hopefully by the time the third lot of adults has died my first own bred locusts will have turned into adults to start a new cycle. 

Ps: I've been getting a few escapees by now... too many bunched in too small containers so I need to expand a bit.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Started feeding off my first own bred locusts :2thumb:

All going well now, surviving well on mainly spring greens. They hardly eat the oats I give them. Not getting any deaths which has surprised me but can't complain.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Hello everyone,
been nearly a year without an update so I thought I'd let you know how it went.

Shame my pictures all seem to have dissapeared..

So for anyone who read my posts they will know locusts stink. I read the other day someone saying dubia smell. Well I have had 100,000 dubia in the past and I have had 100 locusts... The 100 locusts beat the 100,000 dubia smell wise but you will always get people dissing the humble cockroach.
Atleast the cockroach seems to be a firm favourite on I'm a celebrity get me out of here even though they will be the cleanest out the lot.
Anyway, locusts...

I have to admit I gave up breeding shortly after taking the last pictures I posted.
What I did wrong was overbreed. I still only have 1 bearded dragon, once I'd gotten about 200 babies I was still getting 30 more every day from then.

The babies started eating LOADS. The smell got really bad. All my cages needed cleaning. So I abandoned them and my beardie went on a diet.

Now 8 months later my beardie is hungry again so I bought a sack of locusts from livefoodsdirect.

Fair enough I received 10% extra locusts in my sack so was pretty happy and wondering if breeding would be worth it, however to my annoyance over the next 3 days exactly half the locusts have died from them...
They were only in the post for 1 day but it is November so maybe they were shocked but to me half dying is not great. Ah well never mind, they are breeding stock anyway right?

So here we go again. Quick reminder that I need to wait couple weeks till my locusts are adults, then nother couple weeks till they are mature, then 3 more weeks for babies to hatch so next year earliest but not as bad as setting up a dubia colony which takes 6 months minimum.


I have decided to only breed 60 locusts per week max so I will have to keep an eye on eggs laid and kill any excess.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

uploaded some pictures from last time round




























this is now the new setup, just slightly smaller tanks, 1x 20 watt heatmat and 1 x 3w led aquarium light. All breeding locusts are adult now, still pink, but should be mature in a weeks time.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Hello people, 
me again, this time a little bit behind schedule, my locusts have been adult for one month exactly now but haven't seen any mating yet.
Thing is the order from livefoodsdirect messed things up a bit. I mentioned that in the first 3 days I had massive die offs from their order.
Ony 10 baby locusts did well, the rest all died a mysterious death and started throwing up red vomit - a disease I have read about before.
My breeding stock was kept seperate from the diseased locusts but they were kept next to each other in the same cupboard.
Well a few of my breeding stock has now died so I think they got cross contaminated 

I decided to place an order with thelivefoodwarehouse, ordered 50 baby locusts which worked out cheaper than half the price of 100 baby locusts.
I received 70 locusts.
All doing great 2 weeks later.


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

Nearly reaching 2018 now. 

Quick update from the locust tank. Basically they turned adult *42 days ago*. Nothing had been happening so I bumped temperatures up to 33 degrees C
and I moved the light (it is only a 3 watt) right next to their tank.
Few days later I am now witnessing the first mating.

Not sure which was more important but I am suspecting it was actually the light being too far away since I have used smaller containers this time round the light was too far away.

Ah well fingers crossed they aren't too old now


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

all still going well. I've completely run out of food but I've got 150 + babies from breeding again so I'm feeding off my first 30 babies. Makes the effort worth it seeing your work pay off but it has been much easier knowing what I'm doing this time. Weekly clean outs using a larger container to stop escapees and feeding a bit of spring greens here and there. Smell is much improved, as soon as a locust dies I can smell it, so quick clean out needed when that happens, otherwise as long as the containers are ventilated (dry) enough the smell is manageable.


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