Fear of Dubia roaches

So I just bought my beardie Lucy who is a bit over a year old some for the first time. I don’t think she’s had them but I’m unsure if she’s ever had them before. But I heard they are a good thing for beardies. They just got to my house and I am apparently terrified of them and I didn’t expect that. They are a lot faster and climb more than I expected. I don’t know how to go about feeding her them because I’m freaking out so much lol i normally feed her out of her tank. Any help or similar experiences would be appreciated ??

Brittneesmile":1y62zqxm said:

So I just bought my beardie Lucy who is a bit over a year old some for the first time. I don’t think she’s had them but I’m unsure if she’s ever had them before. But I heard they are a good thing for beardies. They just got to my house and I am apparently terrified of them and I didn’t expect that. They are a lot faster and climb more than I expected. I don’t know how to go about feeding her them because I’m freaking out so much lol i normally feed her out of her tank. Any help or similar experiences would be appreciated ??

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Well I was terrified of them too until I held one. Just poke it and watch them do stuff like eat.

My friends would laugh when I had to go feed my beardie because I would scream whenever I had to get the roaches! Kind of funny, but then again I'm almost scared of everything lol

I just poked it one day and it just.. Felt like a weird oval shapes hard cricket. Not that bad and if you out them into a bowl and watch them run around its kind of odd


That's just how I got over it, they're not so bad but I need to start giving my guy crickets again... Dubias decided to eat mold and I have to start over my colony :roll:

I agree with Xenelic. You're just going to have to interact with them. I have a large colony of dubias and I have no trouble handling them. I can reach in and pull out a dozen with no problems. But when I first got my set of breeders, I was a little twitchy about them. I love bugs and I wasn't afraid but I also wasn't used to a big roach crawling on me.

So I sat next to the bin and lightly poked at them for a few minutes and then picked one up, held it for two seconds and then gently let her(it was an adult female) crawl off my hand back into the bin. A few days of that and I was very comfortable with the females. Took me a little longer to get used to holding the males since they're faster and I didn't want them escaping.

If you have any adult females, I suggest starting with one of them. They're easier to catch and aren't prone to running around too much. Once you've handled them a few times, they'll be nothing but tiny harmless bugs to your brain. About a year and a half later, I got my bearded dragon and I hand feed her the dubias every day.

Keep in mind that in order for roaches to survive in the nasty places they are usually encountered in when in the wild, they have keep themselves extremely clean (always cleaning/ preening themselves).

You'll get used to handling them.... might take a few weeks of forcing yourself to catch and handle them every day ….

I hate them, I am afraid of them, so I feel for you. What I do is I order them 200 at a time from Amazon, which lasts me about 4-5 days. I do not breed them. I have a little critter keeper and I just dump them in there when I get them along with a couple chunks of carrots and a water pillow. I keep a couple of pieces of egg crates in there and they like to tuck themselves up under the egg crate. I feed my beardie in a plastic tub outside of his enclosure. When it is time to feed him I take one of the egg crates out and with plastic feeding tongs I knock the roaches off the egg crate into the plastic tub where I feed him. When he is done eating, if he doesn't eat them all (which is very rare) I just shake them down to the corner of the plastic tub and dump them back in the critter keeper. If it is a calcium dusting day I do the same thing but I knock them into a plastic bag with the calcium and shake them up a bit and then dump them into the plastic tub to feed. I hope this helps!

I have to admit I was terrified the first time I got them as well. After you clean their cage and get used to feeding them the fear went away completely for me! Just think ... they are harmless and cannot hurt you. It just may feel a bit creepy if they crawl on you.

I look at them as really big rollie pollies. Lol They're not really gross or anything like that. Definitely not like the normal house looking roach! The first time I held one, it just latched on to my finger like any other beatle. If you ask me, those hornworms are a bit worse than the dubia. They just stick to you! Haha But I don't mind handling either. The dubia are big rollie pollies and the hornworms are big ol gummy worms. Lol