Dubia breeding and feeding to baby dragon questions

[paullyn59]

I just bought a Dubia kit a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to sorting them. I have at least 160 adult females, at least 50 adult males and there must be 150 not too far from becoming adults along with tons of various smaller sizes. With this many adult females, I am worried about the size this colony could become and quickly. I have only read that they give birth to 20-30 babies at a time but nothing about how many times a year a female can have babies? Anyone know?

I gave my daughter got a baby dragon and setup for Christmas and I got hooked looking after it for the couple of weeks before Christmas so will get one very soon after my setup is complete. Her friend has an adult dragon so I only need enough roaches to feed 2 babies and an adult. How many adult females should I have set up with males to breed to accomplish this? Should I have a breeding bin and a none breeding bin?

Also her baby will eat the roaches as long as they are moving but when they play dead, he will lick them but not eat them. She tries to nudge them to get them moving but they play dead again very quickly and the more she reaches in, the baby seems to get upset and then just goes to the window of its feeder cage and stops eating even if they move. She is teacher and the baby is in her classroom so she can't stand there and drop them in a couple at a time so that he always has moving prey which is what she started doing when it was still at home. Any way to stop them from playing dead so quickly or get him to eat them when they aren't moving?

 

[hartungs]

Well you are going to have TONS of dubia running around! Adult females will produce 20-30 babies per month. So in a couple months, with my simple math skills, you can expect about 4,000 babies per month. Are you going to need that many? Probably not with only two babies and one adult to feed. One thing you can do to reduce the amount is to take the males out...

You asked if you should have seperate bins... with that amount I would. You can have a "breeder bin" and a "feeder bin." You should check out Ian's video at The Roach Ranch (http://www.theroachranch.com/) to see how to make what he calls a "roach collander" so you can sort them. It will save you a lot of time.

Your dragon will get used to eating roaches by sight. When I first put my dubia in the feeding bowl, they scurry around and get the attention of Yoda. Once he starts eating them, they like to sit still. He plays a little game and stalks them. Once they twitch... WHAMMO! Gone...

 

[paullyn59]

They have babies every month, not 3-4 times a year? I saw the video which is why and how we finally got around to counting/sorting them.

How many females do you think I should put in a breeder bin?

 

[hartungs]

I think the best thing for you to do is figure out about how many you will need to feed off each month and also what size you will need. Based on that number, you can compute the number of females (and males) to have in your breeder bin. For example, if you only need 1000 small nymphs each month, then 40 females should do the trick. Remember that if you need a steady supply of larger nymphs, you cannot feed the smaller ones out of your bin so you can have the correct size.

This probably goes without saying, but make sure you keep the males and females seperated that you are not breeding. I am sure that most of the females that you take out of the process will be pregnant. Once the babies are born just seperate those out. If you notice that you need more nymphs then just add more females.