How to start dubia colony

Hello,

I purchased a kit on ebay with a bin egg carts food an a heat mat. How do you start a colony. Best places buy bugs from? Get it going

I started by buying a mixed size pack from ABDragons. There were about 600 of them with no adults. It took several months before I saw a new generation appear. If you want this to happen more quickly (but at increased cost) I'd order some adults. Maybe a dozen or two with about a 3 or 4 to 1 female to male ratio. Other than that, they are pretty straightforward to care for. Give them housing and feed them and they go about their business. I like to include leftover salads from my dragon and any kitchen scraps that my dragon can eat. Roaches love squash and the occasional orange slices. Fresh veges help keep them hydrated too.

If you find that the frass starts to build up too much on the bottom, you could introduce a cleaner crew of bugs. I just added a small order of superworms to the mix and they have worked pretty well as a cleaner crew.

You can add superworms to the container?

Beardeddragon090":2aywitxo said:

You can add superworms to the container?

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Yeah once the frass is built up a bit on the bottom they will live there and help take care of bodies and food scraps and keep the waste and smell down quite a bit. You don't want to feed those off, but they make good cleaner crew, eventually turning in to beetles.