By Luzerna Solon

The snowy days of winter, what does it mean for you? To most folks winter means a time of slippery sidewalks, nasty roads, flu season, and something that can be much worse for others, the Winter Blues. The winter blues does not generally happen to someone who is busy all day with things to do in the winter, because they keep active and energetic, as night time approaches, they relax and go to sleep. Now, since you have enough extra time on your hands in the winter, that it causes you to get the winter blues, lets discover a great little hobby that can help fight against it, raising and breeding crickets.

Why would anyone want to raise and breed crickets ? Because there is a good demand for crickets for numerous purposes. Many fishermen use crickets as one of their favorite live baits for bass, bluegill, crappie and numerous other species of fish. Also numerous pet owners feed their reptiles and amphibians a large amount of live crickets, and there are pet stores, who will always be needing a good supplier of live crickets for their customers.

You will need a home to raise and breed your crickets in, an aquarium with a screen type lid will work fine, the larger the aquarium the better, aquariums are also one of the safest containers to use for crickets. Some people use the large plastic tubs or containers with lids, from discount stores, the large containers or bins are often quite cheap to purchase, compared to an aquarium, but they are more dangerous to use. The danger is because crickets need to be kept warm, and a nice temperature to keep them at is around 77 degrees, it does not have to be exactly 77 degrees, they can go up to 81 or down as low as 74, but they seem to breed and live the best when they are kept around 77 degrees.

There are different kinds of heating items available from pet stores, you can get heating pads for reptiles and snakes that are made to be placed under the aquariums or tanks, these are often called U.T.H or ‘ Under Tank Heaters ‘. These heating pads are great for keeping the crickets warm, as they have a thermostat for constant temperature control. If you use a plastic type container, there is a lot more caution needed to guard against softening or actually melting the container, possibly causing a fire or having the crickets escape, so play it safe and choose a heavy duty glass type container or some other fire safe housing, and a heating source that cannot start a fire.

Crickets like to hide and live inside things, some people place empty wrapping paper tubes inside their crickets home for cave like shelters, while other people actually use outdated, but not moldy loaves of Italian bread. If you want to place a loaf of plain Italian bread inside the container, slice it down the middle and hollow out a lot of the inside, then hold the bread back together with a couple rubberbands, and cut off each end of the bread to make for entrance holes. Crickets love hiding inside the hollowed out bread loaf, and they love eating the bread, so it’s the best of both worlds for them.

Besides the bread loaf you should also add a small dish of other food to make sure the crickets get plenty of nutrients to keep them healthy, such as a couple slices of a raw potato, apple, or even a raw carrot that’s been sliced up a little, also make sure they have a shallow dish of unclorinated water to drink. You will need another container that will be used as an egg laying area by the pregnant female crickets. They like to deposit their eggs in a moist type of soil, so a little container or natural sand that is damp works well, while some folks also use buss bedding, that’s been dampened. Every once in awhile you must gently spritz the sand or bedding with unclorinated water, to keep it moist, if it dries out the eggs will die, and you will lose the brood.

Soon you will see a nice batch of tiny young crickets, that will grow rapidly into healthy adults, you can start removing any of the large adult crickets into their own containers if you want, to start selling to pet stores, or use them as live food for any reptiles and amphibians that you may have. Raising and breeding crickets is something that can easily be done in any home or apartment, some folks set up the entire operation in closets, back rooms or some other obscure place, it’s a great way to help fight the winter blues.

There is a website that describes numerous activities and other methods to help eliminate the Winter Blues, this website is called: Winter Activities – and it may be found at this url: http://www.winter-activities.com

You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter or on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.

About the Author: Luzerna Solon, has worked in the field of depression and other aspects involving the Winter Blues for a number of years. She has counseled thousands over the years, and has helped them remove the winter blues from their life with simple activities. Winter Activities

winter-activities.com

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