Cultivating insects

The females are about 6 cm (2,5") and the males are about 4 cm (1,5"). Their colour is brown with dark brown stripes. The wings have dark brown spots. After a few weeks the male turns yellow. Both sexes have wings and are good flyers. The nymphs are orange/black.

The Schistocera Gregaria is pink-brown with dark brown stripes on body and wings. The adult male also turns yellow after a while. The female are 8 cm (3") the males 6 cm (2,5"). Both sexes have wings and are good flyers. The nymphs are yellow, green and black.

Both species live on the ground and in bushes in dry and hot areas. The L. migratoria lives in and around the Sahel desert. It is even found in Asia and sometimes in South Europe. The S. Gregaria lives in the area of the Sahel, Nothern Africa upto middle Asia.

I try to breed the Locusta migratoria, I've bought them in the local pet stores. You need 3 cages/tanks (30x40x30cm lxwxh), underneath them is a heat cable to get the temperature about 30°C/35°C during the day and 25°C during the night. Futhermore I use a 25 watt light bulb slightly dimmed. Light is turned on for 16 hours, because they only eat and lay eggs during the day. Keep the humidity as low as possible (50%), by making enough ventilation holes. The grasshoppers need some space to shed, so put a piece of wire netting in the cage. Take 2 or 3 jam-jars 10 cm high and fill them with a mixture of plant soil and sand and make it moist not wet. Then I take 10 adults (4 males and 6 females) and put them in one cage with a jar. And feed them, and feed them....

Your grasshoppers will eat very much. You can feed them dry grass, leaf green, fruit, vegetables and bran. I give them water in a small bird bottle but avoid anything that can raise the humidity, it can kill all your grasshoppers! In the winter you can feed them reed or germinate wheat in pots or on wet paper. Watch out for insecticides and don't gather your grass near a highway.

The grasshoppers made for several hours. The female stick their abdomen upto 12 cm in the ground and lay a pink-white foamy egg-packet with 40-140 eggs. It may last 10 days up to 3 months before the nymphs will crawl out of the ground, this depends on the temperature.

Remove the jar from the adult cage every 10 days ( I wait till I see the first nymphs before I remove the jar ) and put it in a clean cage. Clean the adult cage and put a new jar in. When the nymphs crawl out of the ground, they wear somekind of "body bag". When they reach the surface they throw it off. Now they are 6 mm big and brown/yellow. Within 15-30 minutes they turn dark brown , even black. They shed about 4/5 times and after 4 weeks they are adults. 2 Weeks later they are sexually mature. As an adult they'll live for 2 months. Clean the cage after every generation befor you put a new jar in. Keep the jars moist during the proces.

Don't worry if it goes wrong the first time, I've tried three times before I got it right. Just clean everything and start all over again. Maybe there are other Herp-keepers in your neighbourhood and you can swop you grasshoppers for mealworms or crickets, your dragon will love the variation.

This is a larva from a beetle that lives on the ground in South- and Central America. The morio is 5 cm long and look like mealworms. The beetles are black and about 3 to 3,5 cm big.

First I fill 6 photo-containers with bran and put 1 morio in each container, make some air-holes in the lid. I check them regularly and replace the dead worms. After a while the worms will pupate and stay in this faze for a few weeks. When you touch them, they'll wiggle, that's a good sign. After 3 to 4 weeks the beetle crawls out and will be brown/red but soon turns black. It will live for 5 months. They need a humidity of 70% and temperatures of 25-30°C. Don't put a light in their cage.

Use big glass or plastic pots otherwise they eat each other. Put 10 cm plantsoil and sand in it and put some cork or wood on top. Put the beetles in and feed them with dog food, fruit, leaf green, carrots, in fact they will eat any thing. The eggs will be laid in the cracks of the cork/bark. 8-12 Days later small worms crawl out. They're to small to see. Just like the beetles the larva will eat anything, even other worms! That's why I take the worms out and put them in another pot when they're big enough the see/pick up.

Only feed the worms, not the beetles. Try to find a worm that has just shedded, they're white. I crush their heads for 2 reasons. First to avoid distapation, second the worms can bite, this way I avoid any chance of injuries. Before I feed the worms I sprinkle them with vitamines and/or calcium.