MalcolmX

yea thanx guys, its 9 days now since the very first female layed but she wasnt very fat and her man wasnt yellow. now all my locusts have mated and layed at least once and most are just finishing their second round of mating. its good to hear that its not exactly 10 days. if you cover the sand with glad wrap how do the hatchlings cope when hatching etc?

yeah im self employed, and spend an hour each day in total just watching. i love it

so my locusts have mated and are laying now. their behaviour up till now was as follows: after the final moult both males(similarly coloured rear, curving upward at tip) and females(blunt dark coloured tip at rear) were an overall pink colour. they are clumsy but after a few days can jump and fly accurately in a confined space. after 5 or 6 days all became very jumpy and exiteable, taking a long time to settle when disturbed. they have a very good apatite now. by the 6 to 7th day males and females appear the same in colour, but the females are genrally larger and fatter, and have the right of way while moving. on the 7 or 8th day males mount the females and a day later they finally couple, although the male tries very hard from the start but of course the female plays hard to get. mating lasts a day or more. a day or more after mating eggs were layed in sand and sand/vemiculite, i cant tell in the vermiculite at this stage, i need to dig through it to find tell. just have to wait 10 days for babies now. today is the 12th day after moulting and most of the locusts are either mating or laying, or eating heaps. some females are becoming very fat and dragging themselves around. some of the mating pairs are also lying down on their sides. the large females constantley convulse their abdomens. the males are starting to become yellow now.

i put some khuli loaches in my 25cm water deep frog tank, and they lasted 2 days. the frogs ate them whwn they got close to the surface.

i remember seeing large schools(1000s) of small perch in tomahawk lagoon years ago, they reminded me of bullies but more mobile - not as jumpy allong the bottom. what about mosquito fish, do they school?

cheers repto, will make the changes to the sand containers/mix tonight. your locusts are on 24/7 with no problems arent they?

a few more days then, ill have to be patient. saw some boys rapidly rubbing there legs on wings to make a noise. have two 2L ice cream containers filled to top with beach sand dune sand(collected after 7 days moderately heavy rain to wash) whitch i will moisten daily when mating occurs. feeding coutch grass and other common large blade grasses, some toytoy type grass, stays fresh longer over night, and a dish of layers mash. sometimes giving carrot peels, will get some red cabbage tomorrow.

well i was going to play them house music giv them a disco ball blow smoke and pour beer on them, but i cant find a dj. do they make a sound, chirp or something?

They are adults who had their final moult 2-4 days ago. the males arent yellow yet either, they look the same as the girls. just read a post on reptileforums.co.uk from a guy with same problem, his eventually mated 7 days later.

have got aprox 20 two to four day old male and female locusts. 31.C - 36.c. fan blowing air over 100W bulb. 24 hours of light fed 2-3 times a day on good grass. there in a 120L plastic container and the fan keeps them nice n dry. they seem happy and i would like to know how to induce mating or if i have to wait for a week or something? cheers