# How do you breed locusts?



## RankinsDragons12

I was wondering how i can breed locusts.If so how many would you expect roughly from 10-20


----------



## SleepyD

there's a good thread here about breeding locusts : victory:
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/feeder/62128-how-breed-locusts.html


----------



## funky1

I personally found it really tricky to breed locust - did it for one season with mixed results and then stopped. Tbh I found myself spending as much time trying - and nearly as costly - to breed locust as breeding leos! 
The important thing is to get a good bablance of males and females - from what I remember (and it`s not gospel) males are the more brown locust and the females green (worth double checking that though!). Don`t forget your heatmat and your moist sand box for them to lay in either!
Hopefully you`ll have some luck - a few seasons ago I found dozens/nearly hundreds of tiny locust in a leo viv. I swear no locust were ever left long in there, no sand pits etc...and they managed to succeed where I failed! Typical!


----------



## forgottenEntity

I am doing ok with Locust breeding now....

I use one of those glass exo terra terreriums - a big one (short and fat, not tall and thin).

11 x 11 heat mat in one corner with a permanently on 60 Watt spot bulb pointing down above the mat, about 6 inches above the meshing at the top of the terrerium. I've got a multi-story egg box thing (made from a spare old CD rack thing I had lying around) which fits at the side away from the heat - this is just to give the locusts something to hang on, which isnt really essential, given I dont let baby hoppers get born into the big tank, I move them before they hatch (more on that in a min) and so dont really need anywhere for them to hang and shed into the next size of locust...

I have a small bowl in the viv with crushed up weetabix in it. I also fill a cricket tub with upright grass and dandilion leaves every day for the locusts.

Only other thing is a laying box - take your pick as to whether you use sand or compost. I use peat / compost for mine. You will need a deep box though for it - soil needs to be about 10 cm / 4 inches deep in order to work correctly (you will be amazed how deep into the soil the females lay the eggs!!). Peat / sand is best moist when you put the box in and then you will need to spray it regularly to keep it moist - doesnt want to be soaking wet, just damp.

I normally leave a laying box in with the adults for about a week and then move it to one of my other glass exo terras for them to hatch out in. Hatching time can be anything from 10-20 days ish, depending on how warm you have the hatching tank. I bought 50 mixed male and female adult locusts, from which I've had around 200-300 baby hoppers per each laying box full of eggs. (laying box is around the size of one of those rectangular ice cream tubs).

Lots of people have different ways of doing all this to me - just this way works for me. Hope it might be helpful to you


----------



## RankinsDragons12

Thanks for the useful information


----------

