All dubia owners please respond :)

[kalipbean]

I made the food dish out of the foam and grout that most people make their beardie basking platforms/rockwalls out of. Wanted a good size dish that could hold a lot of water and food so i decided to make my own. Used 2 3/4" thick pieces and cut it out and made it angled down so the babies can get up to it easily.

The salad i include oranges, grapefruit, collards, carrots, apples and dandelion greens. The roaches TEAR it up, no joke. I use a veggie chopper to mince it up nice.

 

[Triage]

I made the food dish out of the foam and grout that most people make their beardie basking platforms/rockwalls out of. Wanted a good size dish that could hold a lot of water and food so i decided to make my own. Used 2 3/4" thick pieces and cut it out and made it angled down so the babies can get up to it easily.

Brilliant idea!! Good job!

 

[ajkry2]

My dubia are breeding like crazy! once I'm done with this batch of crix nothin but roaches from here...

still waiting for my supers to get going though.

I'm excited

 

[wes]

I just wanted to bump this thread. It has been one of the most informative threads I have read on this board. Thank you to all of you who had contributed!

 

[kevindeeley12]

bump*

 

[suzuki4life]

I am betting the reason you aren't getting babies is simple...you just aren't seeing them....

1000 nymphs will fill a 4oz cup to the top...

pours into a bin full of egg crates and they seem to disappear....

my tubs produce 8-12k per tub per month.


Every tub seems like a non producer until I start sorting them.

second...males are males...they breed much sooner than females...

females normally will have a shiny shell when they are mature. They can get pretty big before this happens.

 

[kevindeeley12]

Just a follow up, I do have babies, and all my other dubias are adults now, which is good. I only have about babies though, which isnt that much, and i started off with 80 mixed roaches.

 

[doopie]

So what do you do with the extra males. I have had my roaches for a couple of weeks and every nymph that molted to an adult came out a damn male. I had 5 pairs of adults and now I have 5 women and 10 men at the party. It is like being in Alaska.

My beardie is to small to eat the males and I do not want to just let them die out in the cold but I also want little ones running around before the females clocks run out of time.

Raymond

 

[kevindeeley12]

Another Follow up - I approxi-counted my dubia's the other day twice just to make sure , and i have around 80-100 males (The 80-100 that i started off with) And around 6-700 babies , and from what I have seen, no one is dying, only growing

And to answer your question, if you are getting rid of males, either feed them, or I guess if you really want to, kill them and throw them away? I would feed them off if I were you though

 

[DragonMomSandy]

Doopie,
Since your dragon is too small to eat the large adult males, you could just buy 20 more adult females from one of the roach vendors, that way you don't have to destroy excess males. Then you have a lot more adults to produce a lot more babies for you. Besides, you are going to need a lot more than 15 adult roaches to get that colony going and self-sustaining.

 

[BlueDevil]

This was a great read!

**Bump**

 

[Monkey]

Thank you so much for the information in this thread, I should be getting 500 mixed dubias in a couple of weeks with a few breeders as well. I will keep feeding mine worms and veggies till they got going but I should have it off the ground rather quickly deeming of what I have read here. Guess who's heading to wallmart today to get the stuff in order Only thing now is to NOT tell bf's mother, cause then she'd freak..

 

[DragonMomSandy]

You won't regret getting the roaches! Best feeder and most economical once the colony is established.

 

[SlabOMeat]

My roach colony is doing quite well and have been finding a new batch of babies almost daily.
My set up is pretty standard, rubbermaid tub with screen vent in the top, sitting on top of a heating pad I got from the drugstore. I have the whole thing setup on top of a metal cage basket to keep the heat off the floor. Heat is VERY important, but like your dragon's enclosure it's good to have a heat gradient in the tub.

I have however changed a few things that I feel work better.
1. I have two full tupperware lids of water crystal all the time. Many of the babies like to hide under the lids, very humid and dark under there. The entire tub is always very humid, which is ideal for a roach that thrives in the tropics!
2. I have two full bowls of roach chow at the opposite side, so they have a lot of food at their disposal all day and night.
3. I keep the bin under my desk away from the light. Even non transparent tubs let some light in, try and keep it as dark as possible all the time. Roaches are most active when it's dark.

You can't feed heavily from your colony for 3-6 months depending on how many roaches you start with. It takes about 3 months, in ideal conditions for a hatchling nymph to grow to about 1 inch. For the first few months I had to have a separate colony for feeders that I purchased so that I could leave the main colony alone as much as possible. If you're constantly in the bin messing with them, the roaches are hiding from you instead of eating and screwing...just sayin'.

 

[ajkry2]

i'd like to mention that my roach colony is doing fantastic. plus my beardie freakin LOVES em!!