Breeding feeders

[Chiyo]

Hi there!

I've been getting fed up with my feeders recently (no pun intended). I'm not sure if it's the supplier or just how I'm looking after them but a ridiculous number of my crickets are dying! I got two boxes which were supposedly 40-60 crickets each, I guess I got about twenty out of each. To add to that they eat each other despite the food which I give them daily!

I was planning on breeding them but I was wondering if it might me more cost effective to try something else namely grasshoppers. Roaches are probably a no-no it's summer here, if any escaped into my house it would be both a nightmare and an infestation.

Any suggestions? Can grasshoppers be used as a staple for a 3 month old beardie?

 

[cfjustin]

Forget breeding any other types of feeders other than Blaptica dubia.

 

[Chiyo]

Aye, that's what I've heard but I'm just a bit worried about some escaping and infesting my house. Crickets/grasshoppers are one thing, roaches could become a serious problem.

 

[Soulwind]

To be honest, you are much more likely to have a cricket infestation than a dubia infestation. The common house cricket (what is typically fed) can thrive in your house, Dubia not so much.

Dubia are a tropical roach species and need higher temperature and humidity levels than are typically found inside a house.

FYI - they are not listed as a "Pest" species. Actually only a few of the hundreds of different "roach" species are.

Also they are very slow growing/slow breeding insects. They take 5-6 months to
go from baby to breeding adult. So even if you do have an occasional escapee, the odds of it living long enough to establish a new breeding set are nearly nill.

(Unless your house is really dirty with available food and moisture sources for them...)

That being said, Dubia are banned in certain states in the US and provinces in Canada (and possibly other places world wide), so check local laws first.

I can't really answer your grasshopper question, although if you feed them off at the proper size (no bigger than the space between the dragon's eyes), I would expect they'd be just as good as crickets. I know folks in the UK talk about feeding Locusts a lot and locusts are just grasshoppers (I think).

 

[Chiyo]

I was wondering that too because in my old school we used to breed both crickets and grasshoppers but then a few classes later we had what they called locusts. They do seem to make the difference here between sautrelles (grasshoppers) and criquets (locusts). I'll have to do more research.

 

[Sauzo]

As far I know, locusts are considered a pest and cant be shipped/sold in the US. Dubias can't be sold/shipped to Florida cause they could thrive there. As others said, I would be more worried about crickets in my house than dubias. Crickets for one thing harbor parasites like pinworm as well they bite, stink and make tons of noise as well as having a very short lifespan which equates to a very quick growth and gestation. Dubias are much slower. I really hate crickets after the years of dealing with them as feeders back in the days.......I really hate crickets