Adult Dubia wings

[Guinness]

I started a colony a few months back and things have moved along nicely to the point that I have extra adult males. Toast has been eating me out of house and home with his cricket feasting and I thought perhaps the extra males might be more filling and satisfy him more than the crickets do.

Anyway, I tested it the other day and let him eat two adult males. Toast is 15 inches long and has a good size head. By my eye balling it they seemed to not exceed the width of the eye rule. The male roaches seem much skinnier than the females.

The good news is he easily squished them up and ate them without a problem. My concern is what came out the back end. It will sound kind of gross but I put on a pair of rubber gloves and investigated the poo and found a single pair of wings. Two roaches went in and one set of wings came out. There was nothing else hard, crunchy or firm in the stool. Other than the wings it appeared to be a normal stool.

So is this something I should take as a sign that he is not ready for adults?

Or since two sets of wings went in and one came out is this a sign that his gut worked on what it had until it was time to move it out and that he is good to go on adult roach snacking?

Do people perhaps pull the wings off the males prior to feeding?

Thoughts?

 

[thelonelyzombie]

My adult female pooped out a pair of perfect wings once too. I know the rule of the space between the eyes, but if you think about it, some beardies are able to eat a small mouse! My husband came up with the idea of pulling the wings off before feeding. But for some reason it sounded extra cruel to me. So my solution was I give my excess males away to pretty much anyone who wants them. One girlfriend has a bull frog that will eat them. Another friend has 5 beardies, so she's always happy to take my extra males. My best guess is that the beardie digestive tract just doesn't digest the wings every time. I don't think its harmful at all to them. Kind of like a human pooping corn maybe?

 

[dom1959]

corn reference made me absolutely lol....

 

[Soulwind]

Wings are pretty much just pure "ruffage" and are mostly indigestible.

Fortunately they are also soft and don't tend to cause blockage issues.

The occasional wing isn't really anything to worry about, as long as he's
large enough (at 15" he should be) and he chews them up good before swallowing.

I do tend to limit Rico to no more than 1 or 2 adults per feeding, with the
rest of his meal being large nymphs just to be on the safe side though.
[Rico is the only one who'll eat the adult males, Mellow won't touch them and Q is still too small].

 

[thelonelyzombie]

When Copper Dragon is hungry she'll eat the males and she especially loves them if they are in my feeding tongs. But if Copper's not too hungry she'll eat large nymphs and adult females before any adult males. I wonder if she knows she won't digest the wings? Or if they jut feel different in her guts or something.

 

[Guinness]

Thanks to everyone for the info. I have been giving him 2 males a day with his other normal servings and everything has continued to come out the back end just fine. Other than the wings that is. :wink: