Cricket Farm Record Keeping: Batches, Mortality, Yields, and More

Good records are the difference between a farm that improves over time and one that keeps making the same mistakes. When you have complete batch histories, you can identify what conditions produce your best yields, which suppliers correlate with better performance, and where your losses are actually happening. Without records, you're operating on gut feel and rough estimates.

Why Records Matter Beyond Compliance

The obvious reason to keep records is regulatory and traceability compliance, especially if you're selling food products. But the operational value is just as important. When a batch performs poorly, a detailed record lets you ask: was it the feed lot? The temperatures during week three? The supplier of those eggs? Without data, every problem is a mystery.

Farms that track carefully also tend to price more accurately. If you know your true cost per pound of harvested cricket including mortality, feed, labor, and inputs, you can quote customers with confidence. Farms that estimate loosely often discover they've been underpricing.

Batch Records

The batch record is the central document for your production. It should capture:

• Batch ID, species, and source
• Hatch or introduction date
• Starting population estimate
• Bin assignments and any consolidation events
• Life stage observations with dates
• Daily mortality counts (or estimates for large bins)
• Feed consumption by week if you're measuring at the bin level
• Environmental anomalies during the grow-out (temperature drop, humidity spike, equipment failure)
• Harvest date, harvest weight, and any processing notes
• Final yield compared to projected yield

This sounds like a lot, but most of it is captured through your daily and weekly bin checks if those checks are being logged consistently. CricketOps structures batch records so that check-ins and observations flow into the batch history automatically, rather than requiring a separate data entry step.

See cricket batch tracking for how to set up and manage batch IDs and locations.

Mortality Logging

Mortality data is one of the most useful things you can track and one of the most commonly skipped. Counting dead crickets during a daily bin check feels tedious when volumes are low and normal. But that baseline is exactly what you need to recognize when something is abnormal.

Log mortality per bin per day, or at minimum per batch per day if individual bin tracking is too granular for your operation. Calculate a running mortality rate as a percentage of starting population. A batch running 1-2% mortality per week is typical and expected. A batch suddenly running 5% per day has a problem.

When you log a mortality spike, also log your hypothesis about the cause: water ran dry, found a gap in the bin lid, temperature sensor was reading incorrectly. Over time this builds a library of cause-and-effect relationships that's genuinely useful for training new staff and for your own operational improvement.

Yield Records

For every harvest, record:

• Harvest date and batch ID
• Pre-harvest estimated population
• Live weight harvested (the weight of crickets going into the freezer)
• Post-freeze weight (there is some moisture loss)
• If processing to flour: wet flour weight and dry flour weight

Actual yield versus projected yield is one of your key performance indicators. If your yield is consistently 20% below projection, you have a systematic problem somewhere in your production process. Feed conversion, mortality, stocking density, and harvest timing all contribute to where that gap comes from.

If you're producing cricket flour, track protein percentage from your most recent batch test. Protein content varies with the feed your crickets received and their age at harvest. This matters both for product labeling and for quality consistency. See cricket flour production basics for more on yield and protein metrics.

Environmental Logs

Your temperature and humidity logs belong with your production records, not just in your sensor system's app. You want to be able to correlate environmental conditions with specific batch performance. At minimum, record daily high and low temperature and humidity for each production zone, along with any anomalies (heater failure, door left open, high humidity event).

If you ever have an outbreak or unexplained mortality event and need to do root cause analysis, the environmental log for the preceding two weeks is one of the first things to check.

Feed and Input Records

Track what feed lot you're using and when you received it. If a disease or digestive problem correlates with a new feed delivery, you want to know that. Keep delivery records with supplier information and lot numbers. If you're using supplements or additives, log those as well.

Feed consumption per batch, when you have it, lets you calculate actual FCR (feed conversion ratio) rather than relying on industry averages. Your actual FCR may be better or worse than the commonly cited 1.7:1 depending on your specific operation, feed quality, and life stage management.

How Long to Keep Records

For operations selling food products, regulatory guidance generally suggests keeping production records for a minimum of two years, longer if you're under FDA registration requirements for human food. For operational improvement purposes, keeping records for at least 12 months gives you a full seasonal cycle to compare against.

Back up digital records regularly. A hard drive failure that wipes a year of batch data is a real and preventable loss.

Making Records Actionable

Records only help if you actually review them. Schedule a monthly review of key metrics: average yield per batch, average mortality rate, FCR trend, and environmental deviation frequency. Bring these into your planning for the next month. Farms that review their numbers regularly catch problems and opportunities that farms running on intuition alone will miss.