Colony Update

[unkempt1]

As some of you guys know about 9 months ago I started with a naive :lol: colony of 12 males and 12 females. After a few weeks I realized this wasn't going to cut it so I increased the females by about 30 from a lady I met off Craigslist that was nice enough to include about 2 dozen or so nymphs of varying sizes. I also bought 100 small nymphs from some cool kid off eBay.

I will admit, I got a little impatient a few times and started feeding off the colony like a month or so after I got it, but after that put it on lockdown. 8) Today I did a third cleaning of the tub, and wanted to give you guys the results of a really good hard count i did of the larger roaches in my colony. Hopefully it will help some of you that are new to having a colony understand the time and effort it takes to create a fully self-sustaining food source for your dragon!

As of today my breeder colony consists of 84 males, 95 females, and about 93 large nymphs that are close to adulthood. I say "about" because there were about 30 outside of that that still looked a little small that I didn't count at all, and I also left about 50 newborn nymphs along with that in there to keep the colony growing.

That's too many males, right? But before you judge can you believe for the last month I have been feeding my pacman frog almost exclusively adult males, and my dragon 3-4 males per week?

How many baby nymphs did I transfer over to the other bin? All I can say is, dear GOD, I have no idea. there were a lot. At first it looked like maybe 300-500, but when I poured them in I realized the sheer number of babies that they had produced within the last 2-3 months since the last cleaning. I was still in disbelief until I put a large carrot in there, and within minutes it was completely enveloped in baby nymphs. I should've taken a pic! :shock:

 

[Claudiusx]

Good news!

The colony will only continue to grow! :mrgreen:

-Brandon

 

[icelore]

Awesome! I'm getting a colony with 180 adult female breeders, some males, and approx mixed 2500 nymphs. I'm hoping that I can feed from them right away. I'm nervous though cause it's been so long since I kept roaches!

How many and of what size do you feed a month? And is your colony out-producing what you're feeding, or holding steady?

 

[unkempt1]

How many and of what size do you feed a month? And is your colony out-producing what you're feeding, or holding steady?

That's a bit of a loaded question with my phib and reptile collection. :lol: Let me start by saying congrats, though, for snagging that amazing deal out from under me! You're so lucky!

The quick answer to whether the colony is self-sustaining is: it depends. I own a bearded dragon, a pacman frog, a leopard gecko, and two crocodile skinks. The skinks refuse to eat the roaches out of a dish, and its not practical to feed in the open cage because they quickly burrow into the substrate. They eat crickets and mealworms pretty enthusiastically, though.

As you can tell, I have a terrible male/female ratio at the moment. For the last month I give my pacman one male every 2-3 days and a pinky or hopper once a month. My dragon gets probably 3 males a week. I plan on cleaning the bin in a month just to do a hard count on where my ratio is after that.

The only pet that is completely self-sustained on my feeder colony is my leopard gecko. She eats about 7-10 baby nymphs a day, and my feeder bin is in no danger of being depleted. :mrgreen:

I think my problem is that the feeder bin has no heat mat so, while they are molting and growing, they are doing so slowly. I know they are growing because I found a male in there (imagine my surprise). My solution will be to buy one more heating pad to help the little ones grow into something more reasonable for my dragon to eat. I imagine if I fed her the small nymphs she would easily cut through at least 50 a day, which would be a huge waste since I bet many of them would just burrow into the sand in her cage. My breeder bin has a heat mat and you see from my OP they are doing well.

So I'll have to get back to you when I see how quickly I cut down the male population of my breeder bin, as well as how the feeder bin does once I get a heat mat. I'll probably do that this weekend. Anyone know if Walmart or a local drug store carries a good one that won't burn a Rubbermaid bin? :twisted:

If you have a dragon that's about 17 inches like mine is, she'll probably eat about 6-10 large nymphs a day. Depends on how much salad she eats though. My girl rarely eats her salad. Judging by the sheer size of your colony, you should be fine. Just make sure you monitor the size of it every few weeks to see if you need to mix some crickets in with her diet. My guess, as long as you keep the temps and husbandry of your colony right, is you should be set! Let me say again, I'm incredibly jealous of the colony you managed to buy!!!

 

[icelore]

Haha, thanks. I was lucky, I usually miss things like that. XD

I managed some colonies for a school I worked for, but I didn't keep track of their growth rate or how much they were removing, so that's why I'm not sure what a colony can produce and sustain.

My dragon is just over 13 inches and eats about 30-40 3/4-1in crickets a day in addition to salad, which he actually does eat thankfully! I'm hoping the colony will sustain him, cause he's breaking the bank on crickets. lol

Thanks for the info!

 

[unkempt1]

My dragon is just over 13 inches and eats about 30-40 3/4-1in crickets a day in addition to salad, which he actually does eat thankfully! I'm hoping the colony will sustain him, cause he's breaking the bank on crickets. lol!

Ah, he's still growing. Mine used to eat like that, minus the salad. Eventually when he gets bigger he'll slow down.

 

[kjinxx2]

You'll want to eventually get a ratio of about 1:8 males per female. Today I sold off almost 500 males to somebody locally in order to bring my ratio back in check