The cricket life cycle: eggs, pinheads, molts and adulthood

Published October 27, 2026 · The Cricket Depot, San Antonio, Texas · Cricket biology

If you buy feeder crickets regularly, you have already seen the life cycle without trying: a box of pinheads looks nothing like a box of adults, and a bin of mediums can turn into larges surprisingly fast. Understanding how crickets grow helps you buy the right size, keep crickets at the size you want for longer, and avoid the common surprise of "my crickets got too big for my gecko."

This guide follows the house cricket (Acheta domesticus), the species we raise. Other cricket species follow the same general pattern, but their timing and adult size differ. For a quick visual version, see our one-page life cycle chart; this article goes deeper into what each stage needs and how to work with it.

The big picture: incomplete metamorphosis

Crickets belong to the group of insects that grow by incomplete metamorphosis. That is a technical way of saying the young look like small, wingless versions of the adult. A beetle or butterfly goes egg, larva, pupa, adult, changing shape completely along the way. A cricket skips the pupa. It hatches as a tiny nymph, and each time it outgrows its exoskeleton it sheds it (molts) and comes out slightly larger and slightly more adult-looking.

So the cycle has three phases:

1. Egg. Laid singly into moist soil or another soft medium by the female.
2. Nymph. The growing stage. A nymph goes through a series of molts; the stage between two molts is called an instar.
3. Adult. After the final molt the cricket has full wings and working reproductive organs. It no longer grows.

Everything a keeper cares about (size, hardiness, noise, breeding) changes as a cricket moves through those phases, which is why it is worth knowing roughly where your crickets are.

Why every timeline depends on temperature

Crickets are cold-blooded. Their metabolism, appetite and growth rate rise and fall with the temperature around them. That is why every number in this article is approximate. The figures we use on our size chart are for house crickets kept warm, around 86–90°F. At those temperatures the whole cycle from hatch to adult takes roughly seven to eight weeks.

Keep the same crickets in the mid-70s and growth slows noticeably. Many keepers find the cycle stretches out by weeks, and eggs may take much longer to hatch or fail to hatch in a cool room. Go too hot, and crickets can stress, dehydrate and die quickly, especially in a closed bin with poor airflow.

Humidity, food quality and crowding also affect growth. Underfed or crowded nymphs grow unevenly, so a single bin can end up with a mix of sizes even if every cricket hatched in the same week.

Stage 1: Eggs

What cricket eggs look like

House cricket eggs are tiny: about 2–3 mm long, pale yellowish-white and shaped a bit like a grain of rice. A female pushes her long, needle-like ovipositor into moist soil, coconut fiber or a similar medium and lays eggs one at a time below the surface. A single female can lay a large number of eggs over her adult life, which is why breeding colonies can grow quickly when conditions are right.

How long eggs take to hatch

In warm conditions (high 80s °F), house cricket eggs typically hatch in roughly one to two weeks. Many breeders notice small dark eye spots inside the egg around the halfway point. In cooler conditions hatching can take considerably longer, and eggs that get too cold for too long may not hatch at all.

What eggs need

• Steady moisture. The laying medium should be damp, not soggy. Eggs that dry out typically die; a waterlogged medium tends to grow mold.
• Warmth. Consistent warmth matters more than an exact number.
• Protection from adults. Adult crickets will dig up and eat eggs, so breeders move the laying container to a separate hatching bin.

If you want to produce your own eggs, our cricket breeding guide walks through the laying dish, incubation and hatching in detail.

Stage 2: Pinheads (newly hatched nymphs)

A freshly hatched cricket is called a pinhead because it is about the size of the head of a pin: under 1/8 inch. Hatchlings are pale at first and darken within hours. This is the most fragile point in a cricket's life.

What pinheads need

• Moisture they cannot drown in. Pinheads can drown in a drop of water. Water gel, water crystals or a lightly misted surface work; an open dish does not.
• Very fine food. A finely ground cricket feed, powdered oats or a commercial gut-load ground to dust is easy for them to eat. Small pieces of fresh vegetable provide moisture too.
• Surface area. Egg crate or crumpled paper gives them room to spread out.
• A secure container. They can slip through gaps and ventilation holes that hold adults easily. Fine mesh is essential.

Who eats pinheads

Pinheads suit very small animals: hatchling geckos, tiny frogs, spiderlings and other small invertebrates. They do not stay pinheads for long. Within about a week at warm temperatures they are noticeably bigger, so if you buy pinheads for a tiny animal, buy amounts you will use fairly quickly.

Stage 3: Growing nymphs and molting

Between hatching and adulthood a house cricket molts several times. Sources commonly describe house crickets going through somewhere around eight to ten molts, though the exact number can vary with conditions. Each stage between molts is an instar.

How a molt works

Before molting, the cricket forms a new, soft exoskeleton under the old one. It then splits the old skin along the back, pulls itself out and expands before the new skin hardens. A just-molted cricket is pale, almost white, and very soft for a short time. Within hours it darkens to the familiar tan-brown.

During that soft period, a cricket is vulnerable. It can be injured by rough handling, and in a crowded or underfed bin it can be bitten by its bin-mates. This is one of several reasons that overcrowding and a lack of protein lead to losses. If you ever see pale, soft crickets or shed skins in your bin, that is normal: it means they are growing.

What growing nymphs need

• Steady food. Growth takes energy. A dry base feed should always be available, with fresh vegetables for moisture.
• Space and hides. Egg crate gives molting crickets somewhere to hang and spread out.
• Moderate humidity and good ventilation. Too dry can make molting harder; too damp invites mold and ammonia.

Our guide to how crickets chirp and grow covers molting and wing development in more detail.

How the stages map to our five sizes

When you order a size from us, you are really choosing a point in the life cycle. Here is how our five sizes line up, using our published ages for warm-kept house crickets. Ages are counted from hatching and lengths are body length without antennae.

Two things follow from this table. First, sizes are a moving target: a bin of mediums kept warm will not stay medium for long. Second, the difference between "large" and "adult" is mostly wings and maturity rather than body length. For help matching a size to your animal, see cricket sizes explained.

Stage 4: Late nymphs and wing pads

In the last couple of instars before adulthood, you can start to see small wing pads on the back of the thorax. These are developing wings, not yet functional. Females show a visible ovipositor growing at the rear, and males and females become easier to tell apart.

Late nymphs are a popular feeder stage: they are meaty, active and usually quieter than adults because they cannot chirp yet. If you want to hold crickets at this stage for a while, keeping the bin toward the cooler side of comfortable can slow them down a little. Do not chill them, though; cold, stressed crickets eat poorly and die more readily.

Stage 5: Adults

How to recognise an adult

• Full wings that cover much of the abdomen.
• Females carry a long, straight ovipositor at the tail end, between two shorter "tails" (cerci).
• Males lack the ovipositor and have more textured wings, which they rub together to chirp.

How long adults live

Once a cricket reaches adulthood it stops growing and starts its breeding life. House cricket adults typically live a few weeks after the final molt, with lifespan depending heavily on temperature, food, space and stress. In a feeder bin, older adults naturally die off over time, which is one reason a bin of adults will show some losses even when you are doing everything right.

What adults need

Adults need the same basics as nymphs (ventilation, dry food, safe moisture, space) with two extra considerations. They chirp, which some households find noisy, and if they have access to moist soil they will lay eggs. If you do not want a breeding colony, avoid leaving damp substrate in the bin. If you do, the breeding guide explains how to set up a laying dish.

Using the life cycle as a keeper

A few practical habits come straight out of understanding how crickets grow:

1. Buy for the size you need in the next week or two. Crickets keep growing in your bin. If your animal needs smalls now and will need mediums later, it can make sense to buy smalls and let some grow on.
2. Split larger orders. If you buy 1,000 or more, keeping part of the order a little cooler can slow growth for that portion. See our guide to buying live crickets in bulk for storage tips.
3. Expect molts. Pale crickets and shed skins are a sign of healthy growth, not disease.
4. Protect molting crickets. Give them space and a steady food supply so they are not bitten while soft.
5. Feed before you feed. Whatever stage you buy, gut-loading for a day or two before feeding makes each cricket a better meal.

And if crickets are dying at any stage, our troubleshooting guide works through the most common causes.

What about crickets in the wild?

Outdoors, the same cycle is timed to the seasons. In many temperate areas, wild crickets overwinter as eggs or nymphs and reach adulthood in late summer, which is when the evening chorus gets loud. Warm climates can support more than one generation per year. Wild crickets also face predators, parasites and weather, so far fewer survive to adulthood than in a well-run farm.

That is part of why we do not recommend catching wild crickets as feeders; our article on wild-caught vs. farm-raised crickets explains the risks. For the wider ecological story, see crickets in nature.

Frequently asked questions