Breeding crickets

[Trogdorpheus]

Light is bad, but if the lamp is just shining heat onto the side or something that would work. Just a rubber bin, no substrate (bedding), put in 4 or 5 (maybe more if you have a bigger bin-search dubia setup on youtube or something) egg crates or cardboard things (paper towel rolls n such) for them to climb and hide in.

And as for how it works... well when a mama roach and a papa roach love each other very much... well they take care of it themselves :roll:

 

[Mcfrekinns]

How many roaches would i need to breed? :lol:

 

[Trogdorpheus]

Depends on how many mouths your feeding, age of those mouths, and how quickly you're wanting your colony to get established after you start. You COULD start with just 1 adult pair, but that would be horrendously slow going, or on the opposite end of the spectrum you could just buy 250 adults and pretty much be able to start feeding out of it in about 2 months. 2 months is just what I'd recommend, cuz by then you would be able to feed off some nymphs that you are actually breeding, OR you could start feeding some (be careful not to feed off too many) adult males since after 2 months chances are most of your females are preggo and you won't need more males before your nymphs are fully mature to replace them.

 

[Mcfrekinns]

My mom said that if two roaches escape, then they'll breed all over the house :laughing6:! So she's not to keen for me to do this. How about breeding mealworms? How does that work?
Cheers

 

[Sapphire]

Mealworms aren't a good staple feeder for beardies.

Tell your mom that dubia roaches need a constant supply of food and water, they aren't like the common nasty roaches that can thrive off garbage. The likelihood of one male and one female roach escaping, finding enough food to reach maturity, finding each other in your house and breeding is not very high.

 

[Mcfrekinns]

I've been feeding my beardie on mealworms. Would it be better to have a mix with crix? For example, one week mealworms, another crix. Back to roaches. What type of food do they eat?

 

[Sapphire]

Mealworms have a lot more chitin (hard outer shell/exoskeleton) than other feeders, and that makes them harder to digest. Apparently mealworms can also cause impaction in small beardies. Crickets and roaches are the two most common feeders for younger dragons. I feed mine crickets mainly, but I've gotten pretty sick of them, so I'm going to start a roach colony soon. Most people argue that dubia roaches are the #1 best staple feeder for bearded dragons.