So my husband and I have been trying to get our dubia colony started since June. Finally, FINALLY, spring has sprung and the birds and the bees are happening. I counted out roughly 50-60+ baby dubia today -- a few days ago I only saw maybe 10-15. They are teeny, tiny little dubias that look like rolypolys! They're adorable.
Now that my colony is finally beginning, what should we expect next? Do we need to immediately start weeding out the teeny babies? We haven't done much except count out how many we have and feed them regularly (roughly 215 dubias, most sub-adult/adult now) along with a little heating pad under the crate side of their enclosure.
Inform the proud mother of what needs to be done for all of these babies. They're so little, I don't want to harm them... yet. Bwahahahaa.
PS: As a sidenote, we moved in August from a house with wood floors into a house with tile floors. When we first got here, the temp's were way off, like 75 degrees no matter what I tried. What's worst is the oranges kept molding and the sides and lid of the container kept condensation-ing. I've stopped giving them water crystals, so the condensation stopped (unless I don't check on them for a few days, then some on the lid). I am still having problems with the oranges trying to mold. For now I'm just serving them their food on half a styrofoam plate so they're easier to clean. They get chopped up apple/squash/greens/potato/celery/teeeeeensy pinch of fish food flakes cut up fine and smeared around on their "garbage salad" to intrigue them. Is there a trick I can pull to get everything to go back to how it was in our previous house? We never had condensation problems or molding there.
I'm terrified with these new conditions my colony could just implode on itself one day or all the little babies will kick the bucket!
Now that my colony is finally beginning, what should we expect next? Do we need to immediately start weeding out the teeny babies? We haven't done much except count out how many we have and feed them regularly (roughly 215 dubias, most sub-adult/adult now) along with a little heating pad under the crate side of their enclosure.
Inform the proud mother of what needs to be done for all of these babies. They're so little, I don't want to harm them... yet. Bwahahahaa.
PS: As a sidenote, we moved in August from a house with wood floors into a house with tile floors. When we first got here, the temp's were way off, like 75 degrees no matter what I tried. What's worst is the oranges kept molding and the sides and lid of the container kept condensation-ing. I've stopped giving them water crystals, so the condensation stopped (unless I don't check on them for a few days, then some on the lid). I am still having problems with the oranges trying to mold. For now I'm just serving them their food on half a styrofoam plate so they're easier to clean. They get chopped up apple/squash/greens/potato/celery/teeeeeensy pinch of fish food flakes cut up fine and smeared around on their "garbage salad" to intrigue them. Is there a trick I can pull to get everything to go back to how it was in our previous house? We never had condensation problems or molding there.
I'm terrified with these new conditions my colony could just implode on itself one day or all the little babies will kick the bucket!
