Suitability of Egg Laying Media and Egg Collecting Techniques for House Cricket Farming
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Abstract
The house cricket, Acheta domesticus (Linnaeus) is a highly nutritious insect. It has a short life cycle and can increase its population quickly. This research aimed to determine the egg laying capability, the suitable egg laying media, the appropriate moisture content of media for egg laying, and the hatching rates of the house crickets. The result revealed that the house crickets laid more eggs in the nighttime (1,059 eggs) than in the daytime (688 eggs). The total number of eggs during its lifespan was 1,795 eggs. Number of eggs on different egg collecting periods of house crickets between every day period (egg collecting period 9 times) and every other day period (egg collecting period 5 times) were collected during 9 days on coconut coir media. It was found that there were no significant difference in the numbers of eggs laid, 856 and 867 eggs/cricket respectively. The study on different types of egg laying media: peat moss, vermiculite, coconut coir and burnt rice husk revealed that peat moss was the most suitable egg laying media among the others (P ≤ 0.05) yielding 38.75 ± 1.32, 31.97 ± 1.62, 22.12 ± 2.13 and 7.17 ± 1.81 percent, respectively. Moisture content of peat moss at different percentages was used 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70 percent. The result showed that the moisture content at 50 percent in peat moss provided the maximum average eggs laid for 35.18 ± 1.51 percent and more than 95 percent of the hatching rate.
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