1 topic for all my animals i breed for my beardo

[goblinsly]

Hey everyone !

Since i breed 4 feeders atm, and in future plan to breed more, i opened 1 topic for all of them ( this way i dont have to open multiple topics, and also i dont mess in other peoples topics with my own questions ).

Anyway, i have 4 bearded dragons right now, 1 of them is 1 year old, other 3 are 3-4 months. Figures, a lot of hungry mouth. Soo lets begin.

I had limited succes with breeding Blaptica Dubia roaches ( have quite a lot young ones now, but only about 5 mature ones left, because when i ran out of crickets i had to feed them to adult beardo, and they grow very slow ). i also had limited succes with mealworms, but i didnt plan on breeding them, soo when they became bettles, i just put that box away and after like 2 months i had many small ones. Now i plan to breed them soo i set them proper tank with everything they need.

But what i had no succes with are the crickets and superworms. I will post pictures of their current enclosure and explain you what is where for what reason, etc. Soo you can correct me, give me advices, etc.

I will begin with crickets. I have those for quite some time now but i didnt see many youngs yet. The substrate was dirt, over all tank. They had food, water and place to hide. I also had heat lamp installed but since enclosure was opened, temperature wasnt very high. On 1 spot it was around 28C/82F, but everywhere else it was probably around 20C/68F.

After reading some guides on web, i figured out that having dirt all over the tank is non practical. What i did in new tank is that there is no substrate ( i might add toilete paper ), but there is a special little box with dirt in it, where they can drop their eggs. And after i see lots of eggs there, i will remove it and put it into another big box where they can hatch. As you can see there is plenty of room to hide, food, water - gel and sponge - it is there not for them to drink water, but experimental, because i seen some ppl have succes with crickets droping eggs on it. And that would be perfect, really easy to deal with. Anyway, near water and food, you can see the temperature meter. Atm it is 29C/84F there, i will work on getting it to 30C/86F, which they say is the best temperature for crickets. They dont have any fruit there yet since i just put them into new box, but im gonna give it to them now. Ok here are some pictures, and we are done with the crickets.

Now the superworms. I read a lot about them on net. I got quite a few of them to pupate and turn into bettles ( by seperating them and puting them somewhere hot/dark ). But now its been about 2 months since first of them turned to bettles and i havent seen any small worms yet. The enclosure is simple, substrate ( mixed dogfood, crumbs and cereal ), same as my mealworms are in, they have water - gel, piece of breaad, place to hide ( egg carton ) and fresh fruit. Temprature inside is 27C/80F. Here are the pictures.

I hope you can comment this and give me some advices on what i am doing wrong or what i should improve. Thanks in advance for your answers.

- goblinsly

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

WOW! I've gotta say, you've got quite the set up there. You sure you're not a mad scientist?
Can't say that I'm too hip w/ the crix and superworms. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and seriously.... flushed every last one of them down the toilet. They drove me nanners'.

Anyway if you're going to keep them than to start I'd get the sponge outta there, don't want to harbor any terrorist molds that will kill off your colony.

Man, that's a lot of work for such a small payout... You sure you don't want to go back to Dubia? All you need to do is heat them puppies up in a rubbermaid bin, give them a constant source of Roach chow & fresh fruits and veggies, and you'll have thousands of them within months! I know it takes a little for them to grow but w/ a bunch of heat and food they will grow like crazy! Heck if a caveman like myself can induce "roachie love" than anyone can do it. You'll have more roaches than you can shake a stick at before you know it. Best part is that there's no work involved!

Anyway hope that whatever you do it works out good for ya.

Good Luck!

-Ian

 

[patrickb]

I had limited succes with breeding Blaptica Dubia roaches ( have quite a lot young ones now, but only about 5 mature ones left, because when i ran out of crickets i had to feed them to adult beardo, and they grow very slow ). i also had limited succes with mealworms, but i didnt plan on breeding them, soo when they became bettles, i just put that box away and after like 2 months i had many small ones. Now i plan to breed them soo i set them proper tank with everything they need.

Here was the mistake. You should not have fed the adult females off no matter what. That killed your colonies production. A Dubia colony needs to be well established before you can safely feed from it and still produce enough for each month's feeding and patience here is the big key. With those baby Dubia you have left, leave them to grow and breed and absolutely do not feed them off. Figure out how many feeders you need per a month for your 4 beardies and divide that number by 15. The result is how many adult females you will need in the Dubia colony before you are producing enough to feed all of your critters safely.

And a quick note, the mealworms are not a recommended feeder for beardies because of their lack of nutrition and high chitin levels. You risk major impaction feeding them to a beardie as a staple and thus I recommend against it. A couple once a week would be ok, but not as a main feeder period.

I will begin with crickets. I have those for quite some time now but i didnt see many youngs yet. The substrate was dirt, over all tank. They had food, water and place to hide. I also had heat lamp installed but since enclosure was opened, temperature wasnt very high. On 1 spot it was around 28C/82F, but everywhere else it was probably around 20C/68F.

After reading some guides on web, i figured out that having dirt all over the tank is non practical. What i did in new tank is that there is no substrate ( i might add toilete paper ), but there is a special little box with dirt in it, where they can drop their eggs. And after i see lots of eggs there, i will remove it and put it into another big box where they can hatch. As you can see there is plenty of room to hide, food, water - gel and sponge - it is there not for them to drink water, but experimental, because i seen some ppl have succes with crickets droping eggs on it. And that would be perfect, really easy to deal with. Anyway, near water and food, you can see the temperature meter. Atm it is 29C/84F there, i will work on getting it to 30C/86F, which they say is the best temperature for crickets. They dont have any fruit there yet since i just put them into new box, but im gonna give it to them now. Ok here are some pictures, and we are done with the crickets.

You are on the money in removing the dirt substrate from the container and using a small container with dirt in it for the egg laying. In your pictures, there is very little dirt in the container. It should be about 3-4" full of dirt roughly for maximum results. Remove the sponge as Ian pointed out, it is a bacteria growing machine that could kill off your colony without any warning. The water gel or fresh fruit/veggies should be your moisture source. Do not plan on it being the medium in which the crickets lay their eggs. They will occasionally lay eggs in it, but those eggs will most likely not hatch and thus are wasted. The container with the dirt in it is where you need the eggs laids and the crickets will lay them there mostly assuming you keep it moist.

Everything else in your setup looks pretty good. It would be preferable to move the heat source to the side with the eggcrates since it would keep the egg laying container and water crystals from drying up as well as provide a cool side for the crickets in case of sudden temperature spikes, however I think that light would possibly melt the plastic if kept too close to one side. An UTH or human heat pad under the container would be a good alternative heat source if available. In your water gel dish, fill it about halfway with water on a daily basis. This will keep the crystals hydrated better. However, you will probably need to replace the crystals every other day or so with crickets, as they will foul them up pretty quickly. Also, make sure you are cleaning the bin out every day. All the dead bodies have to be removed daily as they will decompose and release gases than can quickly kill off all the other crickets. Every other day you need to shake the tubes out and sweep out the poo to keep a healthy and slightly less stinky colony.

The supers I can't comment on as I have never raised them and really haven't read much on them other than the occasional bit. It sounds like you got them setup properly. I do know they are very slow growers and it will be quite some time before you see babies.

Overall I think you got your setups about the way you need them, the big thing I see is just the lack of patience mainly. Any breeders you have will need time to grow and reproduce and it won't happen over the course of a week. Feeding from the colonies before they are fully established and meeting your needs will mean failure every time. Out of the ones you are breeding, crickets have the fastest "turn-around" time of them all. They run their full life cycle in about 2 months total, so the cricket colony will be the first thing you have that is producing enough to meet your needs if managed properly. The mealworms, see above, don't use as a staple and just keep for occasional treats. IIRC they take around 5-8 months to complete a full cycle, but I might be off here. Dubia, it is going to be about 6-8 months from hatching to when those babies begin breeding. 4-5 months for the babies to grow into a decent feeder size for adult beardies. Supers I have no clue on their rates.

Breeding feeders is going to require planning ahead. You need to keep in mind the growth time of them in order to properly plan for production. When you first start out with any feeder, it is difficult because you need some to feed your animal immediately, but you absolutely have to allow them to establish and start producing the right numbers. This is a process that takes many months to reach depending on what feeder you are using, but once you get there, then all of those worries go away. A healthy colony will have all life cycles of the feeder present at all times with plenty of the right size to feed to your beardie and many more babies growing up to replace the ones you feed off and any breeders that die off.

I hope that helps and I didn't mean to sound rude or critical about this. Just trying to offer my advice and opinion on what I saw and hopefully get you on your way to raising your own food! :lol:

 

[augsburg1530]

I agree 100% with Patrickb

Eric

 

[goblinsly]

Tnx for the replies.

I did 2 changes since my last visit. First, i removed the water-gel from Superworm bettles enclosure and changed the beddings ( saved it in another box incase there are any eggs in old bedding, which i sure hope there are ), cause there was mold on it ( superworms carry bedding into water or water into bedding ). Soo now i just gave them a piece of apple and i hope this will provide enough water for their needs ( some info would be welcome ). I would also like to know how long does it take the bettles to mate and how soon will i see small worms ( if anyone is succesfully breeding them ).

Now to the crickets, i changed their hiding places, glued together toilete paper rolls, soo it will be easier to clean up the enclosure. I also made them the roof, soo they can bask there ( i noticed just like the lizards, they like to bask on the sun also ), and added a piece of apple. 1 question, should i leave the light on 24/7, or have it on/off 12/12, like i do with my beardos ?

Here are 2 pictures of their new setting.

 

[Catalyst]

Yes, slices of apple or potato are all they need for moisture. It's important to keep the bedding dry in a superworm tub because it can mold quickly which can lead to sick bugs and all other sorts of nasty things. The worms, when they hatch, are very tiny, and you might not notice them right away. Some signs to look for are when the bedding starts to look a little chewed up (you know its baby worms because the beetles don't eat the bedding), and when the bedding moves on its own a bit when you stir it up. I usually leave my beetles for about a month before I start checking for babies. It's a slow process to get going, but once you're a couple of generations in, you'll have superworms coming out your ears

Here's a pic of my superworm set up - its pretty simple, wheat bran for bedding, a bit of egg crating to hide on, and half a plastic lid that the potato slices sit on so that the bedding doesn't get wet. My beetle tubs are the same but they have much less bedding, only an inch or so, because you have to leave lots of room to add fresh bedding for the baby worms as they grow since they stay too small to pick out of the dirty bedding for a long time.

 

[goblinsly]

Right now my superworms are in a tank that looks exactly like the previous one, exept like i mentioned, i removed water crystals becuase of the problems you mentioned. I have exactly 1 inch ( 3 cm ) of bedding right now. We will see how it goes, i will keep you posted. And as goes for crickets, i already have 5 small crickets runing around the tank and i see lots more eggs ( its only 5 soo far, but trust me, im happy i made progress ). This monday i get 3 packs of adult crickets ( i think each pack contains about 40 adults ). I am not sure whether i should put them all together in 1 tank ( the tank i post pictures of ) or in 2 seperated tanks, i am afraid that too many of them will start killing eachother. Anyway my plan is for this 120 crickets to lay eggs and when they die off i hope crickets that are haching right now will be able to replace them and start laying eggs. Soo i will have a breeding cycle going on.

I also read that you have to clean your cricket bin, otherwise it may cause illness and death among crickets. Since its kinda hard to clean the bin with crickets inside, would it be ok if i cleaned the bin everytime a generation died ? What i mean is, lets say i put pot with eggs inside a box. Crickets grow, become adult, lay eggs and die off ( or i feed them to beardos ). When there is no more crickets inside i remove pot with eggs to another box to hatch and clean the box.

 

[patrickb]

Right now my superworms are in a tank that looks exactly like the previous one, exept like i mentioned, i removed water crystals becuase of the problems you mentioned. I have exactly 1 inch ( 3 cm ) of bedding right now. We will see how it goes, i will keep you posted. And as goes for crickets, i already have 5 small crickets runing around the tank and i see lots more eggs ( its only 5 soo far, but trust me, im happy i made progress ). This monday i get 3 packs of adult crickets ( i think each pack contains about 40 adults ). I am not sure whether i should put them all together in 1 tank ( the tank i post pictures of ) or in 2 seperated tanks, i am afraid that too many of them will start killing eachother. Anyway my plan is for this 120 crickets to lay eggs and when they die off i hope crickets that are haching right now will be able to replace them and start laying eggs. Soo i will have a breeding cycle going on.

As far as the moisture source, apples and potatoes work great, but what works even better are carrots. They won't mold and just dry up. I prefer carrots as a veggie moisture more than anything else because of that. The crickets should be fine in the tank all together. As long as they aren't having to crawl over each other to just move a bit, you should have enough furniture. Your setup looks about right now, except you still need more dirt.

I also read that you have to clean your cricket bin, otherwise it may cause illness and death among crickets. Since its kinda hard to clean the bin with crickets inside, would it be ok if i cleaned the bin everytime a generation died ? What i mean is, lets say i put pot with eggs inside a box. Crickets grow, become adult, lay eggs and die off ( or i feed them to beardos ). When there is no more crickets inside i remove pot with eggs to another box to hatch and clean the box.

You can try it, but it will seriously kill your production amounts and possibly wipe the whole colony as well. I have never been able to raise a full generation without cleaning the container because the smell was just too much for me to handle, but in the containers I didn't clean very often, I noticed a much higher die off rate and less crickets compared to the same ages in a container I cleaned regularly. YMMV, but I suspect your results will be the same.

For cleaning, just dump your furniture of all crickets and poo then sweep that poo to one side of the container. Put the furniture back in on the freshly swept side and the crickets will run for cover. Then just scoop the poo out with a mini dustpan or something similar. A small painter's brush makes a great broom for this purpose. Try it a few times and you will see how to get the crickets out of the way. It's not that hard, just a bit tedious since it needs to be done so often.

 

[augsburg1530]

Cleaning regularly - Once again this is another reason why Dubia are far superior to cirx. I clean my Dubia maybe every 6 months.

Eric

 

[goblinsly]

But are Dubias also as good nutrition as crickets are ? Is there any page where i can compare nutrition value of superworms, mealworms, crickets, different roaches, etc. ?

 

[augsburg1530]

Dubia are superior to crix as a feeder as well as all other areas.

Here is a link to a webpage from a guy here on the forum named clear. This site has info on many different feeders http://www.feedersinc.com/

Eric

 

[goblinsly]

Thank you for your reply.

But why are soo many ppl using crickets as feeder instead of roaches. I mean i already knew roaches are superior to crix in every possible way exept i didnt know about nutrition. I mean crickets are jumping, meaning its hard to feed them to your beardo, they die fast and stink ( many of my crickets died off for no reason, but not even 1 dubia ever died on me, and i have about 50 of them atm ).

Anyway, i have some good news today. I checked box with old beeding from my superworms and i seen a few tiny little cute worms inside. Also number of my newely born crickets is possible over 20 right now. They are cute too, like tiny ants .

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

Thank you for your reply.

But why are soo many ppl using crickets as feeder instead of roaches. I mean i already knew roaches are superior to crix in every possible way exept i didnt know about nutrition. I mean crickets are jumping, meaning its hard to feed them to your beardo, they die fast and stink ( many of my crickets died off for no reason, but not even 1 dubia ever died on me, and i have about 50 of them atm ).

Anyway, i have some good news today. I checked box with old beeding from my superworms and i seen a few tiny little cute worms inside. Also number of my newely born crickets is possible over 20 right now. They are cute too, like tiny ants .

I personally think that it's the term "roach". People have been subjected to all the negativity surrounding them for centuries. The don't realize that only about 12 species of roach are considered "pests". Considering that there are well over 3000 known species and more to be discovered that's less than 1%....! All the pest species either come from Germany or Asia as well. It's basically the old term... "One bad apple spoiled the whole damn bunch".

In all reality Crickets and mealworms are nasty, nasty little critters that you really don't want in your house. If you talk to some of the top breeders in the country today they'll tell you that they don't feed crix or mealworms. They have no legitimate nutritional value. If you don't gutload them properly you might as well be feeding your animal styrofoam. Roaches on the other hand have a ton of protien and low fat. They have softer shells w/ more fiber and lower chitin as a result. This means that everytime you feed your Lizard a roach you can rest assure that it's getting one of the best feeders nature has to offer. Roaches are quickly replacing the cricket and meal worm. If you're already feeding roaches than there's no need of crickets or mealies. I know people think that they are giving them "variety" when they do this. But they really aren't. That's a human thing. Lizards don't care. The only thing that you should be doing when feeding roaches is making sure that you dust them w/ calcium. No better meal than that for your little buddies and you can take that info to the bank.

-Ian

 

[goblinsly]

Whats funny is, somehow i got german roaches speading around my flat. Wasnt my fault, another neighbour got them here, but i sure had to deal with em. Duck - Tape and my beardo had free food for months. Soo basicly blaptica dubia roaches compared to german roaches are funny, they cant climb, while german roaches can. They are a real pain in the ass. My personal opinion is, blaptica dubia is slower then crickets, but from what i have been told here, once my colony is going, im never going back to crickets.

 

[patrickb]

You really won't ever go back to crickets. I always had a freak factor with roaches in general due to some infestations in my home when I was younger. They just creeped me out like no tomorrow. And I will pick up anything, but those big American Cockroaches, I wouldn't go near.

I decided to go ahead and try out roaches after hearing all the good things about them and all I can say is that I wished I had known about them 5 to 7 years ago. Would have made my life much easier. They don't bother me one bit as a feeder type, but if I see one of those American roaches, I still jump a bit at first sight but even still I just grab em with my hand and dispose of them properly...

For future reference and anyone else reading this, I would avoid feeding any roaches you catch during an infestation, especially in an apartment type of setup. It is very likely chemicals are being used to control them and roaches can be very tolerant of the chemicals and carry them while still living. Your animals may not be as lucky though. Just something to keep in mind.