Madison Cricket Farm owner Kevin Bachhuber holds up an egg tray covered in crickets.
Madison Cricket Farm owner Kevin Bachhuber pulling out an egg tray covered in crickets.
Plastic tubs filled with thousands of crickets each line shelves at the Madison Cricket Farm.
There are thousands of crickets nestled between cardboard egg trays in each plastic tub.
General Assignment Reporter
Madison Cricket Farm owner Kevin Bachhuber holds up an egg tray covered in crickets.
Madison Cricket Farm owner Kevin Bachhuber pulling out an egg tray covered in crickets.
Plastic tubs filled with thousands of crickets each line shelves at the Madison Cricket Farm.
There are thousands of crickets nestled between cardboard egg trays in each plastic tub.
A new farm in DeForest has no barns, fields or tractors, and the commodity isn’t corn or cows, either–but rather another C.
Madison Cricket Farm relocated to 116 Antique Lane last September after initially opening in the Capital City last January. After having quickly outgrown its space in Madison, owner and operator Kevin Bachhuber discovered a 3,000 square foot warehouse facility in DeForest – four times the size of his original space.
His DeForest warehouse is strictly raising crickets for animal consumption and his primary buyers are pet stores. Insectivore reptiles such as geckos, iguanas, lizards, turtles and snakes devour the bugs with abandon.
Far from the dairyland, Bachhuber first discovered his love for the chirpy insect in Thailand in 2006.
When he returned to the States, he became an evangelist for consuming the diminutive bug as an alternative protein source and his proselytizing resulted in numerous media interviews and even a TEDx talk.
He was on the cutting edge of crickets at the time and says he was considered a pioneer in the industry. When the United Nations later released a report supporting insects as a climate-friendly alternative protein, it made a big splash and helped lay the groundwork for Bachhuber to build his career path.
He even developed an inspection process for the Food and Drug Administration that he shared widely with other farmers.
Then he became a consultant, helping insect agriculture companies set up farms all over the world, until that work came to an abrupt halt in 2020 because of COVID-19. He briefly considered opening a food-grade farm in the former Oscar Mayer Plant in Madison, but said the profit margins are better on raising insects to be reptile feeders. It also would have taken three years to turn a profit there. He’s no longer focused on raising crickets for human nutrition today.
“Insects for feed was a much easier path,” he said.
Bachhuber brought his business to DeForest due to finding a warehouse that came pre-insulated at an “unreasonably low rent price,” he said. A cold-resistant space is essential for crickets to thrive.
It also offered a running water source, the lack of which at his former Madison location became a significant challenge.
The Green Bay native had operated a cricket farm in Youngstown, Ohio, for five years before that, but in late 2020 returned to Wisconsin to help care for his mom during the pandemic.
As Bachhuber returned to his consulting business full time, the farm became more of a hobby or side hustle for him, he said. He spends at most 20 hours at the farm in a week and has three part-time employees.
Despite that, the 3,000-square-foot farm still nets a profit comparable to a “reasonable middle class income,” he said. “The money is great, it pays the bills year after year, and there’s a lot of complexity to the work.”
However, training employees can be difficult, he said, because certain situations or incidents with the crickets only occur a few times a year.
“It’s mission critical, but damn near impossible,” he said.
Cricket copiousness
Bachhuber’s warehouse teems with over 2 million crickets. Dozens of plastic tubs line shelves, with thousands of crickets nestled between cardboard egg trays in each tub.
The crickets dine on a special pre-made feed Bachhuber purchases from Missouri that was developed by veterinary entomologists with Ph.Ds.
The DeForest farm was built as a “faithful replica” of a 100-year-old system designed in the American southeast including Louisiana and Georgia. Though, Bachhuber now has some regrets due to increasing lower back pain and has a goal to become more automated in 2023 and do less lifting.
He wears noise-canceling headphones during peak breeding season, as many cricket farmers report getting permanent tinnitus from the chirping cacophony.
The farm is self-sustaining, and Bachhuber oversees the full-life cycle of the crickets from egg to full-grown. Around 3 to 5 percent of the crickets are used as breeders, and crickets lay around 100 eggs a day during breeding season.
From hatching to adulthood takes about 37 days.
“I really enjoy every time a batch of eggs hatches; I still go ‘woo hoo’,” Bachhuber said.
While over 900 species of cricket have been identified by entomologists, only three have been approved for sale in the United States. For a long time, only the house cricket was allowed to be sold until a virus outbreak from 2009-2014 called cricket paralysis resulted in mass deaths and led half of U.S. farmers to convert to the banded cricket.
It put many other farmers out of business, which is still resulting in shortages for pet stores today.
Few cricket farms passing to the next generation also contributes to the shortage.
“Five years ago, the average age of a cricket farmer was 60, today it’s 65,” Bachhuber joked.
Bachhuber estimates that nationally two dozen large cricket farms supply to national pet store chains, around five or six dozen mid-sized operations, and around 100 garage-sized farms.
His buyers are all “hyperlocal,” he said, due in part to the difficulties of shipping crickets long-distance during winter.
Reptile Rapture in Monona, Noah’s Ark in Madison, Toadally Frogs in Antioch, Animal House in Sauk City, and BioDome The Reptile Emporium in Libertyville, Illinois, are among his top buyers.
He ships between 10 to 20 orders a week, with tens of thousands of crickets each.
“It’s fun to be a steward for so many insects,” Bachhuber said.
By chance—or perhaps by fate—the creative minds of a native son of DeForest and a recent transplant have coalesced at PBS Wisconsin, to award-…
General Assignment Reporter
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