Not enough dubia to keep my dragon fed...

[Spikeshuman]

How many dubia does it take to sustain a juvenile beardie? I bought a colony of about 100 adult dubia.. and a total of about 1000 roaches of varying sizes.. most in the medium range. I still have all the adults.. which are too large to feed to Spike.. and I have babies.. but I have run out of everything in between. I bought the colony on Nov 3rd.. and its only one month later and I am basically out of edible roaches for my dragon! This is a big problem since she now refuses to eat crickets. Im not sure what my options are for feeding her and I am begining to worry. I am already feeding her roaches that are a bit too big for her.. they are about 1.5 inches.. Spike is 16 inches and 300g.

Ok so I got off the main question... what size does the colony need to be to sustain a 5 month old beardie?

 

[william488]

I have two beardies, and I have started my colony of dubai's at the end of september with 100 females, 25 males, and about 500 little ones, I now have same amount of adults, but I have probably 1100 little ones between very tiny and 1 inch. I think it will still be a few months before I can feed off them all the time. Right now I give them some once a week. The rest of the time they are eating super worms. I feed daily the smaller roaches to my leopard gecko( he gets up to 4 roaches and 5 meal worms daily) , my fire toad(fed every other day), and my two crested geckos (crested are feed live once a week). Good luck with your colony. Your beardie being 16 inches is big enough to try supers, but just take it slow to begin with, make sure your beardie can digest them. good luck.

 

[FishboneNC]

I'm in the same boat!
I'm still buying 1000 small roaches, the tiny ones I put back into the colony.

It might take me 2 or 3 months to be completely sustainable.

From what I've read and figured out, I can't use the colony to exclusivity feed from!
It could take a few months for the colony to get going. All the females producing 20 to 40 babies a month.

One (possibly 2) females in my colony gave birth while in transit, after 3 weeks I saw new births, in about a week or two from then (4 or 5 weeks old) that first batch should be big enough to be feeders. To be sustainable, I can't take ALL the feeder size roaches out each month, some have to stay to keep the colony growing.
WHY?
1. More males are born than females. (Males have to be culled to reduce fighting each other, spend their time breeding and not eat all the food)
2. it takes 4 to 6 months for baby roaches to become adults
3. the adults I bought to start with would be close to retiring just as the first batch is beginning to give birth.
By feeding Spike roaches that are too big for him, Spike is eating the future of your colony.

How many adults you need depends on how much Spike eats.
Read this:
viewtopic.php?f=76&t=162485&hilit=dubia+megaguide

 

[Spikeshuman]

I tried some cut up super worms back in early October. She did not poop the next day... then the next.. so that night I put her in a warm bath and she went. I could only assume that meant the super worms gave her a bit of constipation. She would absolutely love super worms... she loves any worm.. It must be the wiggling. Would super worms be a good addition so that the dubia colony can replenish? I am worried because I am almost completely out of any roach between 1/2 an inch.. and 1.5 inches. There are only babies and big guys. Also.. can I feed the smaller adult males to Spike? There are way too many males in there. I don't seem to have any fighting or damage... I feed them the powder from my dog's food which is grain free and mainly meat, so I guess they aren't lacking protein at all. Should I pluck off their wings if I feed them to her?? There are several smaller males in there that are a good size to feed her but I haven't yet because of those nasty wings.

 

[Soulwind]

Each adult female makes 20-40 (average 25-30) babies a month.

Each of the babies takes anywhere from 1 month to 6 months to grow to correct feeding size
(depending on how big you're feeding) (6 months is full breeding adult).

So you have to account for how many babies you need per month - and let at least one month's
worth of them grow to the proper size before you start feeding from the colony.

That way every month you've got a month's worth of babies hitting the proper size.

PLUS you need to have some extras that are allowed to grow up to full breeding adults
to replace your die offs as the current adults age.

So, let's say the dragon eats 900 a month (which seems to be a very rough average for a growing dragon)

You'd need around 50 females breeding monthly, giving you roughly 1200-1500 babies per month so that you've got enough extra
to let some grow to breeding age.

Then if it takes say 3 months for them to grow to proper size for your dragon, that means you'd need to
wait 3 months after your first set of nymphs appear before you start feeding from the colony.....

 

[Spikeshuman]

So.. at this point it seems like I would need to leave the colony alone for 3-6 months.. difficult to do when all my silly dragon wants is dubia. She will ignore them and starve all day if I put crickets in her house. Luckily she seems to be slowing down for winter.. she only ate 4 roaches yesterday. Even at only 4 roaches.. I would run out fairly soon. Thanks for the info and tips.