Pixall
Sub-Adult Member
I have noticed a number of question threads about B. dubia keeping lately, and figured setting up a guide thread might be a good idea. I want to start off by saying I am NOT the ultimate end all be all authority on B. dubia. I am just someone who keeps a colony. Other keepers are welcome to jump in where there is a gap or flaw in my knowledge, and people are more than welcome to post questions, answers, pictures, stories, information, whatever. 
So you are thinking of raising your own dragon food
There are many reasons to want to raise your own feeders. The least of which is not cost. A growing dragon can eat over 100 crickets in a day, and this can get very expensive, no matter what your source is! Consider that one B. dubia is equal to the amount of protein in THREE crickets and you realize that when you feed higher quality food, you need to feed less. Usually dragons take this on on their own and eat less B. dubia than they would crickets. Keep in mind that a dragon should be fed 2-3 times daily as many insects as they want until they turn a year and a half old. Salad should be available daily, as much as they want as well.
Another common reason to raise your own food is you have more control over what goes into your dragon food. You KNOW what the insect ate, what it was exposed to, how healthy it's parents are, etc etc etc. You are not exposed to feeder insect viruses and parasites. You are no longer at the whim of your supplier. A perfect example of this is the cricket virus that is going around. If you purchase infected stock, you can expect ridiculously high die offs, and many suppliers have switched to the Jamaican Field Cricket, which is a much more aggressive species. Many captive dragons have a high parasite load from eating insects from less than perfect suppliers.
Deciding what species to raise
There are many choices on this one, and many different opinions. The most common choices are crickets, mealworms, turkistan roaches, B. dubia, superworms, silkworms, and Black Soldier Fly larva. There are pros and cons for each, but I will stick to the B. dubia pros and cons.
B. dubia are great feeders for a number of reasons. On the dragon's end they are (apparently) delicious. They have a higher meat-to-shell ratio than crickets, and their protein level is way higher. They will not bite your pet, and can even be left in the dragon enclosure if need be. They do not cause impaction as mealworms do, and can be fed to any size dragon, unlike superworms. On the keeper's side they do not climb, bite, jump, make noise, or fly a great distance. When kept properly, they have only a very slight odor, many people do not even notice when they are directly interacting with the colony.
The cons are that they are still cockroaches. Many people cannot wrap their minds around trying to get a breeding colony of cockroaches in their home. The little roaches can climb better than the adults, so you need to put a ring of packing tape around your habitat's lid. They need to be heated in order to breed properly and many people keep their colonies in plastic storage bins. Males have been known to flutter short distances, and they have that cliche roach look.
All this being said, many people find B. dubia to be one of the easiest feeder insects to raise.
Alright, B. dubia sound good. Is N a good amount to order?
Perhaps, but that all depends on a few different factors. B. dubia breed fairly rapidly, but they are not magical. Each female can only produce 20-40 babies per month. This means that before a colony can be considered 'established' and fed off from, you need to have enough adult females to produce just over the amount of babies you need to feed your dragon(s) in any given month. A simple way to figure this out is to take the number of crickets your dragon eats on a GOOD DAY(higher amount), multiply by thirty to get the amount per month. Then you divide by 20 to get the number of adult females you need in your colony.
And because math is evil, I will give you a couple of examples.
Say I have a 5 month old dragon who can put away 120 crickets on a good day. I multiply by 30 to get 3600. Per month. Then I divide this by 20 to get 180. If I have 180 adult females, I will have MORE than enough to feed this dragon every month.
I have a four month old who is a bit of a slow eater. He only eats 80 crickets per day. 2400 a month, divided by 30(because I don't want to always have extra roaches around) I get 80. I need 80 females.
Say I have two dragons(I do! lol), one subadult who is a pig and eats 130 crickets on a good day, and a picky eater who only eats around 75. I add the two numbers together to get 205. 205 PER DAY. multiply by 30 and I get 6150 per month. Then I divide by 40 because the picky one is picky on more days than the pig is a pig and I want to give them other feeders to add variety, and I get 153.75. I need 154 adult females to sustain my two dragons.
As far as males go, most people keep one male for every five to ten females. They fight if you have too many males.
Now, buying adult roaches is the fastest way to establish a colony, but it is also the most expensive. Many people start out with a mixed size order of roaches with only a handful of adults. This is more than acceptable to start out, and is cheaper by a lot! The downside is you have to leave your colony COMPLETELY alone for 4-6 months, possibly much longer, depending on how many you buy. Each roach takes 4-6 months to reach adulthood, and there is no guarantee on what gender any given baby may turn out to be.
Okay, I ordered my roaches. What do I do when they get here?
Well, first of all, you need somewhere for them to live, unless you plan on turning your home into theirs. The size of the roach house depends on how many you are expecting. Remember that roaches LOOOOVE company, so it is okay if their house is a little cramped. You would be surprised how many can happily live together.
You want your bin to be dark. Everything can be 100% perfect, but if they have too much light, they will not breed. Most people(myself included) go out to the hardware store or walmart and buy a large rubbermaid or sterilite container with a lid. A hole is cut out of the lid and mesh is hot glued over the hole to allow proper ventilation. Dark plastic is best, as I said earlier. Other people use a glass aquarium with the glass blacked out with construction paper, trash bags, or auto window tint. This is purely personal preference. The glass allows safe use of certain heat mats that the plastic can not.
The roach house should be warm. Most people use a human heating pad set on low. I use a Repti-Therm UTH, which I do not recommend if you have a plastic tub. If you go with the Human heating pad, make sure you get one WITHOUT the ten hour auto-shutoff. You want it to run 24/7. The roachies should ideally be kept between 80-95*F, but will breed at slightly lower temperatures, though not nearly as quickly.
Roaches like it humid as well. When kept in the ideal temperature range, their water should be warm enough to keep their house nice and humid. Which brings up another point; their water. B. dubia, and indeed many other species of feeder insects, are EXPERTS at drowning themselves. There are several ways to stop this from happening, and I will look at a few of the most common ways here.
Buying 'Cricket Pillows', 'Orange Cubes', or any other readily available commercial insect watering product is a very expensive way to provide moisture to your micro society. Also, in the case of the 'Orange Cubes', there are things in it other than water. You are losing a large amount of control over what your dragon eats secondhand. B. dubia can hold their food for up to SEVENTY-TWO hours, so you need to be extra careful what you give them. Also, these products are a HUGE ripoff.
Providing fresh veggies and fruit is another acceptable method, but the price is again very high. You also have the added risk of mold, which is a known roach killer, and the annoyance of fruit flies.
A paper towel with water on it works, but you need to change it frequently and check to be sure that it is damp at all times.
Overall, the most popular method is to provide water gel crystals. It is a very cheap product, marketed as 'Soil Moist' or a number of other brand names in gardening stores. Make sure you get the kind WITHOUT plant food. I got a one or two pound bag for 15$ off eBay. A bag that size will last me forever and a day. The problem with this product is that it still needs to be changed fairly frequently. The roaches poo in it or drag food in, and after a while it can start to mold. I usually change it once every week to week and a half.
A way of making the roaches way happier and healthier, as well as allowing you to keep more roaches in a smaller bin is to use egg flats for them to crawl on and hide in. There are a number of sources for these. You can go to a grocery store or restaurant and ask if they will give/sell you any for cheap. If you ask nicely, chicken farmers will tell you who their supplier is(they usually buy for cheap cheap cheap!) There are a few places that sell them online, and the shipping is enormous! For good reason, though, as the shape is an odd one to ship.
Okay, I have my roach house and my roaches-What do I feed them?
This is another one that there are as many choices as there are keepers, probably even more! Most people have crushed cat food as the main ingredient in their chow, though. All I can really tell you for this topic is what I use. I do two parts cat food, one and a half parts dog food, half a part fish food of some sort, half a part sugar. My buggies seem to like it. If the males' wings start looking beat up, I add more fish or cat food to up the protein.
Update: I have since changed my chow recipe to include oatmeal. They seem to enjoy it and a large tub is only 3$ at walmart.
What about fruit and veg?
There is no question that fruits and veggies are RELISHED by these tropical little roaches. Almost any type will do, provided that your choice is safe for dragons. Remember, these invertebrates can hold their food for quite some time! Many people choose to give their roachy friends the leftovers from their kids' salads or dragons' salads. Personally, I give a whole, fresh orange every two-three days. They DESTROY it within hours! I simply slice it in half and stand it up so the babies can get at the two halves easier.
I have read that almost any citrus will work like Viagra for them. While this may be true, my culture seems to be made up of snob nosed "picky" roaches(if such a thing can exist). They turned down the limes I have offered, as well as dandelion greens.
This is all I can write up for right now. I feel like I just wrote a novel and am tapped out for the moment. I'll add more later, but feel free to reply with things I should add or questions, or whatever
The next addition to this guide: PICTURES!!
So you are thinking of raising your own dragon food
There are many reasons to want to raise your own feeders. The least of which is not cost. A growing dragon can eat over 100 crickets in a day, and this can get very expensive, no matter what your source is! Consider that one B. dubia is equal to the amount of protein in THREE crickets and you realize that when you feed higher quality food, you need to feed less. Usually dragons take this on on their own and eat less B. dubia than they would crickets. Keep in mind that a dragon should be fed 2-3 times daily as many insects as they want until they turn a year and a half old. Salad should be available daily, as much as they want as well.
Another common reason to raise your own food is you have more control over what goes into your dragon food. You KNOW what the insect ate, what it was exposed to, how healthy it's parents are, etc etc etc. You are not exposed to feeder insect viruses and parasites. You are no longer at the whim of your supplier. A perfect example of this is the cricket virus that is going around. If you purchase infected stock, you can expect ridiculously high die offs, and many suppliers have switched to the Jamaican Field Cricket, which is a much more aggressive species. Many captive dragons have a high parasite load from eating insects from less than perfect suppliers.
Deciding what species to raise
There are many choices on this one, and many different opinions. The most common choices are crickets, mealworms, turkistan roaches, B. dubia, superworms, silkworms, and Black Soldier Fly larva. There are pros and cons for each, but I will stick to the B. dubia pros and cons.
B. dubia are great feeders for a number of reasons. On the dragon's end they are (apparently) delicious. They have a higher meat-to-shell ratio than crickets, and their protein level is way higher. They will not bite your pet, and can even be left in the dragon enclosure if need be. They do not cause impaction as mealworms do, and can be fed to any size dragon, unlike superworms. On the keeper's side they do not climb, bite, jump, make noise, or fly a great distance. When kept properly, they have only a very slight odor, many people do not even notice when they are directly interacting with the colony.
The cons are that they are still cockroaches. Many people cannot wrap their minds around trying to get a breeding colony of cockroaches in their home. The little roaches can climb better than the adults, so you need to put a ring of packing tape around your habitat's lid. They need to be heated in order to breed properly and many people keep their colonies in plastic storage bins. Males have been known to flutter short distances, and they have that cliche roach look.
All this being said, many people find B. dubia to be one of the easiest feeder insects to raise.
Alright, B. dubia sound good. Is N a good amount to order?
Perhaps, but that all depends on a few different factors. B. dubia breed fairly rapidly, but they are not magical. Each female can only produce 20-40 babies per month. This means that before a colony can be considered 'established' and fed off from, you need to have enough adult females to produce just over the amount of babies you need to feed your dragon(s) in any given month. A simple way to figure this out is to take the number of crickets your dragon eats on a GOOD DAY(higher amount), multiply by thirty to get the amount per month. Then you divide by 20 to get the number of adult females you need in your colony.
And because math is evil, I will give you a couple of examples.
Say I have a 5 month old dragon who can put away 120 crickets on a good day. I multiply by 30 to get 3600. Per month. Then I divide this by 20 to get 180. If I have 180 adult females, I will have MORE than enough to feed this dragon every month.
I have a four month old who is a bit of a slow eater. He only eats 80 crickets per day. 2400 a month, divided by 30(because I don't want to always have extra roaches around) I get 80. I need 80 females.
Say I have two dragons(I do! lol), one subadult who is a pig and eats 130 crickets on a good day, and a picky eater who only eats around 75. I add the two numbers together to get 205. 205 PER DAY. multiply by 30 and I get 6150 per month. Then I divide by 40 because the picky one is picky on more days than the pig is a pig and I want to give them other feeders to add variety, and I get 153.75. I need 154 adult females to sustain my two dragons.
As far as males go, most people keep one male for every five to ten females. They fight if you have too many males.
Now, buying adult roaches is the fastest way to establish a colony, but it is also the most expensive. Many people start out with a mixed size order of roaches with only a handful of adults. This is more than acceptable to start out, and is cheaper by a lot! The downside is you have to leave your colony COMPLETELY alone for 4-6 months, possibly much longer, depending on how many you buy. Each roach takes 4-6 months to reach adulthood, and there is no guarantee on what gender any given baby may turn out to be.
Okay, I ordered my roaches. What do I do when they get here?
Well, first of all, you need somewhere for them to live, unless you plan on turning your home into theirs.
The size of the roach house depends on how many you are expecting. Remember that roaches LOOOOVE company, so it is okay if their house is a little cramped. You would be surprised how many can happily live together.You want your bin to be dark. Everything can be 100% perfect, but if they have too much light, they will not breed. Most people(myself included) go out to the hardware store or walmart and buy a large rubbermaid or sterilite container with a lid. A hole is cut out of the lid and mesh is hot glued over the hole to allow proper ventilation. Dark plastic is best, as I said earlier. Other people use a glass aquarium with the glass blacked out with construction paper, trash bags, or auto window tint. This is purely personal preference. The glass allows safe use of certain heat mats that the plastic can not.
The roach house should be warm. Most people use a human heating pad set on low. I use a Repti-Therm UTH, which I do not recommend if you have a plastic tub. If you go with the Human heating pad, make sure you get one WITHOUT the ten hour auto-shutoff. You want it to run 24/7. The roachies should ideally be kept between 80-95*F, but will breed at slightly lower temperatures, though not nearly as quickly.
Roaches like it humid as well. When kept in the ideal temperature range, their water should be warm enough to keep their house nice and humid. Which brings up another point; their water. B. dubia, and indeed many other species of feeder insects, are EXPERTS at drowning themselves. There are several ways to stop this from happening, and I will look at a few of the most common ways here.
Buying 'Cricket Pillows', 'Orange Cubes', or any other readily available commercial insect watering product is a very expensive way to provide moisture to your micro society. Also, in the case of the 'Orange Cubes', there are things in it other than water. You are losing a large amount of control over what your dragon eats secondhand. B. dubia can hold their food for up to SEVENTY-TWO hours, so you need to be extra careful what you give them. Also, these products are a HUGE ripoff.
Providing fresh veggies and fruit is another acceptable method, but the price is again very high. You also have the added risk of mold, which is a known roach killer, and the annoyance of fruit flies.
A paper towel with water on it works, but you need to change it frequently and check to be sure that it is damp at all times.
Overall, the most popular method is to provide water gel crystals. It is a very cheap product, marketed as 'Soil Moist' or a number of other brand names in gardening stores. Make sure you get the kind WITHOUT plant food. I got a one or two pound bag for 15$ off eBay. A bag that size will last me forever and a day. The problem with this product is that it still needs to be changed fairly frequently. The roaches poo in it or drag food in, and after a while it can start to mold. I usually change it once every week to week and a half.
A way of making the roaches way happier and healthier, as well as allowing you to keep more roaches in a smaller bin is to use egg flats for them to crawl on and hide in. There are a number of sources for these. You can go to a grocery store or restaurant and ask if they will give/sell you any for cheap. If you ask nicely, chicken farmers will tell you who their supplier is(they usually buy for cheap cheap cheap!) There are a few places that sell them online, and the shipping is enormous! For good reason, though, as the shape is an odd one to ship.
Okay, I have my roach house and my roaches-What do I feed them?
This is another one that there are as many choices as there are keepers, probably even more! Most people have crushed cat food as the main ingredient in their chow, though. All I can really tell you for this topic is what I use. I do two parts cat food, one and a half parts dog food, half a part fish food of some sort, half a part sugar. My buggies seem to like it. If the males' wings start looking beat up, I add more fish or cat food to up the protein.
Update: I have since changed my chow recipe to include oatmeal. They seem to enjoy it and a large tub is only 3$ at walmart.
What about fruit and veg?
There is no question that fruits and veggies are RELISHED by these tropical little roaches. Almost any type will do, provided that your choice is safe for dragons. Remember, these invertebrates can hold their food for quite some time! Many people choose to give their roachy friends the leftovers from their kids' salads or dragons' salads. Personally, I give a whole, fresh orange every two-three days. They DESTROY it within hours! I simply slice it in half and stand it up so the babies can get at the two halves easier.
I have read that almost any citrus will work like Viagra for them. While this may be true, my culture seems to be made up of snob nosed "picky" roaches(if such a thing can exist). They turned down the limes I have offered, as well as dandelion greens.
This is all I can write up for right now. I feel like I just wrote a novel and am tapped out for the moment. I'll add more later, but feel free to reply with things I should add or questions, or whatever
The next addition to this guide: PICTURES!!
Nhà Cái Cá Cược Trực Tuyến Đáng Chơi Nhất 2024
