Dubia Colony + Oranges?? + What to do with excess males?

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I've been hearing that if I want my dubia colony to explode, I should put orange slices in with their water crystals and roach chow. Is that right? If so, how long do I have to wait after removing the orange leftovers to feed my dragon from the colony? Bearded dragons can't have citrus, can they?

I started my colony around a month ago with 5 adult males, ~20 adult females, and maybe 20-30 juveniles of undetermined sex. They're in a grey Rubbermaid tote with a screen put in the lid, egg cartons stacked vertically, separate food and water crystal dishes, and it's on a regular heating pad that doesn't shut off. Temps from the bottom to about halfway up normally range from ~102°-85° on the warmer side. I get in there once a week to replenish the water crystals and make sure they have food but otherwise pretty much leave them alone. I cleaned the roach poop & whatnot off the inside bottom once. Should I be doing that more often or is once/month ok? I don't want to disturb them too much. They're definitely reproducing and I have a bunch of babies now *but* after hearing about the oranges for the gazillionth time about a week ago, I threw in some orange slices. Now I'm paranoid about using them as feeders lol I should've checked here first. A bunch of them were immediately all over the oranges.

I don't have room in my apartment for separate breeding and feeding colonies, unfortunately, and most of my roaches are still too small to use as feeders. Derpy lizard doesn't recognize the babies as food anymore. Do I need to remove the oranges, period? Or leave them in and remove them at some point before using the roaches as feeders? If I go that route, how long before feeding them off do I remove the oranges?

My juveniles are all adults now and my other issue is now my male to female ratio is all out of whack. I have a few too many males now and no clue what to do with them. Pancake refuses them if I kill them and cut them in half before offering them; I tried before adding the oranges. She's about 8 months old and just hit 17 inches in length, not sure about her weight but she appears to be in the healthy range. Not a chonker and not skinny. Is it safe to give her a whole adult male at her age and size or could it cause impaction? If I can't feed them to her whole and she refuses them dead and chopped in half, what the heck do I do with the extras? Apparently FB Marketplace doesn't allow any live animals so that's out.

*Sorry about the rambling, guys. I have adult ADHD and haven't been able to pick my medication refill up yet. I get weird without it lol.
 

CooperDragon

BD.org Sicko
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The orange slices are fine. The roaches love them as treats and I haven't seen any ill effects in a dragon. Instead of using water crystals (which may contain chemicals I don't want in the food supply) I suggest offering a variety of veges. My roach colony goes nuts for squash (and even pumpkin guts). They're pretty good composters of kitchen scraps for the most part. As far as cleaning and caring for the colony, I don't do much except replenish the food. They're pretty self sufficient once the colony is going. I've added some superworms (and beetles) to the frass once it got deep and they seem to work pretty well as a cleaner crew.
 

reereejugs

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Thank you! I'm going to check my water crystals and see if they say anything about chemicals. If anything looks iffy, I'm definitely switching them out for veggies. My worry with veggies in the feeder bins is I have a tendency to forget about them and they end up getting moldy. It's kind of an out of sight out of mind thing.
 
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