Wanted a pet beardie, got a pet dragon and pet bugs.

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Eckabeb

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Anyone else figure that out too late as well?
My husband and I wanted a beardie for about a year now. When we finally got Moira in April, we were super excited.... and then we began looking up feeders. We had not done any research into keeping them. We thought "1000 crickets for $22! Wow, that should last her for forever!", not realizing she can actually eat 1000~ crickets in under two weeks. So when the bug expenses started piling up (still are!), we began looking into starting a colony of Dubias. We saw people on youtube handling them, letting the roaches crawl on their hands, etc. We thought they were crazy and decided we would only use tweezers to touch them.
So we started our colony about a month ago now. My husband and I have become a little attached to them. We never considered we would have pet bugs with a pet lizard. We even let them run around our hands when messing with them! We have become "one of those people" that we saw in the videos and we try to explain to others who ask about our beardie's food and such that the dubias are roaches, but "not" roaches. They are pets. They eat salads and oranges. They don't sit there eating on gross dead things like we imagined normal roaches do.

So did anyone else get a little shocker when they received their bearded dragon? Did you ever wake up one morning and go "I'm going to breed roaches today"? Let us know we're not the only crazys out here. Hahaha.
 

SukiLove

Juvie Member
I'm the same. :D Although I haven't held the adult roaches, I do touch them. Sometimes I just watch them for a while after I put fresh food in, they are truly fascinating! But I will say that I've had reptiles all my life, and I always tell people that if you get insect-eating reptiles you will have 2 pets: the reptile and their food. :lol:
 

Taterbug

BD.org Addict
I hear you :D

I now raise superworms, silkworms and dubia for lizard food, and treat them kind of like pets. My feeder roaches have their own terrarium - they are really fun to watch. They seem rather social with each other too.

I also use a bioactive substrate, part of which is using bugs as custodians. I've colonies of rollypolies (super cute babies), sowbugs, and springtails. It's really fun to see who lives where and what they get up too.
 

Eckabeb

Member
Original Poster
Taterbug":10ad574p said:
I also use a bioactive substrate, part of which is using bugs as custodians. I've colonies of rollypolies (super cute babies), sowbugs, and springtails. It's really fun to see who lives where and what they get up too.

This is a thing? I love those bugs. How do we get rollypolies and what do they do?
 

Taterbug

BD.org Addict
Isopods can be purchased online or collected from the wild. If you plan to use them with your dragon only collect from very clean up polluted areas, otherwise if it's just for pets you can get them anywhere. The bigger ones may be enticing as food and you wouldn't want contaminated ones. However if they are eaten they are an excelent source of calcium - something like 16:1 Ca:p for some species, iirc. They like humidity and do quite well when you replicate where you find them outside - under rocks and logs where it stays cool and damp. They eat fungus, leaves and leftover food (and dragon poop if they are custodians).

Bioactive substrate is a bit more advanced, it requires husbandry to be excelent and a good understand of your pet, but once you understand it it's super rewarding :)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bioactiveherps/?ref=ts&fref=ts
http://www.beardeddragonforum.com/threads/bioactive-soil-as-a-substrate-choice.11152/
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Yes!! When others ask what types of pets I have, I give them the list, and at the end of my list I add, "Oh, yeah ... And a colony of roaches." (And crickets or whatever other feeder I'm using at that time.) I get a lot of strange looks
... Hahahahaha!
 

Eckabeb

Member
Original Poster
Jenn, not a week ago I asked my mother if she wanted a picture of our dubia colony. Of course she asked what that was. I sent her a picture of them crawling all over their food like starving children. Her reaction was great.
 

jenn4turtles

Juvie Member
Eckabeb":1foatjnr said:
Jenn, not a week ago I asked my mother if she wanted a picture of our dubia colony. Of course she asked what that was. I sent her a picture of them crawling all over their food like starving children. Her reaction was great.

I bet!

I refused to do Dubia in the beginning, but I hate having crickets, so I bought some Dubia in November. I still won't touch them, and if one gets on me while I'm fooling around inside the bin ... Well, let's just say the neighbors probably can hear me scream. The babies don't bother me as much, but the adults ... <shudders>
 

SukiLove

Juvie Member
It's also nice to save the "I have a roach colony, do you want to see it?" For those people that you don't really want over to your house all the time. :lol:
 

hmarie186

Member
So far we have an established colony of Dubia, an up and coming one (feeders that grew up cause the geckos didn't eat them fast enough lol), a bin I separated a bunch of extra males and various sizes into. I can sit and watch them for hours! We also have red runners, lobsters and my favorite -6 spotted (e. distanti). The latter have become more my pets, though I never touch them or pick them up. They do love their mistings every morning at feed time and make adorable squeak noises when excited. Even when they turn into adults and breed I doubt I will ever feed out of the colony. They had a rough start and I lost about half of them when they first arrived here so I'm pretty protective of my remaining ones (about 20) LOL! We started out with one gecko, then I rescued another, and our roaches got so plentiful we got a baby dragon to help!
 
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