Dubia colony questions

[augsburg1530]

I used to use the 3 to 1 ratio until theroachguy said he uses the 10 females to 1 male ratio. I switched and my production has not changed, I'm just not feeding unneeded males anymore.

Eric

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

I used to use the 3 to 1 ratio until theroachguy said he uses the 10 females to 1 male ratio. I switched and my production has not changed, I'm just not feeding unneeded males anymore.

Eric

REALLY?! That's the first time I've heard of this. I'm going to set up a colony w/ this ratio and see what happens. Right now my breeder colonies are 450-150. I've got a few colonies I'm assembling right now and I'm going to try 600-60 with the next one to see what happens. I'm always up for new ideas. Plus a lot of my clients wouldn't mind more adult males for their customers w/ bigger lizards.
I hope it works out. Thanks for the info Eric!
-Ian

 

[INCA]

how many females do you have at 15,000 a month!!

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

how many females do you have at 15,000 a month!!

I keep 450 in each of my breeder tubs. I guess on the low side of things, 20 per female which will give me 9,000 a month per tub. However I keep all my monthly collections from each tub separated and as they get a little bigger I inventory them so I know what I have for my customers. The colonies that are younger pop out about 11-12,000 a month. An established 6 month old colony right now is banging out 15,000+ a month. That means that most of my females are producing 25-30+ a month each. It sounds crazy but the numbers don't lie. I'll get some pix up soon for you to check it out.

-Ian

 

[INCA]

wow.. wish i had that many!!

 

[pepatt]

Ha Ha! BABIES!!!

Yep, a couple of my girls had their first babies. I'm pretty excited. I guess it just insured me that was doing stuff correctly. Anyway, it sound weird to say, but those baby roaches are CUTE!

I think oranges are the food of love for roaches. I started stealing orange slices from the fruit bowl and giving them to the roaches and BAM! Babies!

 

[sddragons]

How is everyone counting these things. I started with 430 mixed and 22 adult pair from the roach guy a couple weeks ago. I glued 3 whole pairs of egg crates and I have one loose one in there. How am I going to keep track of all of these and even know if they are breeding or not.
I have a dome with a 60w heat element shooting down thru the screen. Is this ok as opposed to heating from the bottom?
How long should I wait to started weeding out the adult males?

 

[gregorydragon]

I would be interested to hear how other people keep track of their counts also. I estimate mine whenever I clean or sort more feeders, but with the egg crates glued together you are not likely to get every single dubia out of there.

Regarding your heating method. Just measure your temps inside the tote. If it reaches 85-95 degrees then it should be fine.

I don't think you need to start weeding out the males until your colony is established (in general). I say this, but I have a story to go with it. When I was waiting for my colony to grow, I noticed a ridiculous number of adult males as compared to the females. I didn't pay any attention until I noticed that some of the males had their wings chewed, which is a sign of aggression from other males (for various reasons). I had a steady supply of water crystals and food so I don't know if this had anything to do with it. I had about 75 females at the time. I counted and removed about 70 males, which left me with around 40 to keep the colony growing. Every time I sort, I remove males. I always leave the ones that look like they recently molted. I have not had any other issues with aggression. I don't even know if this was really the issue either.

Once you have a steady colony, you could start a new tote and hand pick the females and males to go in it. Then you know exactly how many you have (at least for the next 3-5 months anyway).

 

[INCA]

thats a good plan. i would need multiple bins of dubias breeding to give me a supply

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

How is everyone counting these things. I glued 3 whole pairs of egg crates and I have one loose one in there. How am I going to keep track of all of these and even know if they are breeding or not.

I literally take a count every say 3 months of breeding on a couple colonies. Usually the first one day, and the second another. I'm trying to get the fluctuations down so I can better estimate on colonies the older or younger they are... YES it takes quite a while! But I never said I was the brightest.

This is just me. But I wouldn't be gluing your egg crates together. Just stack them vertically so the frass can fall through them. It's ten times easier to get roaches out of their container for feeding or separating purposes when they got"s" now where"s" to run. If you're gluing them than your just asking for headaches that may even cause fits of rage.

As for your light. If it's keeping a good temp that's fine but remember these 2 things that mother nature has imposed on us.

1. Heat rises

2. Roaches do not like light. If it could stay dark 24/7 365 days a year they would gladly take it. More heat, darker container, and less disturbances = Unbelievable appetites, Quick Growth, and mucho grande' babies. In that order as well.

Ha Ha! BABIES!!!

Yep, a couple of my girls had their first babies. I'm pretty excited. I guess it just insured me that was doing stuff correctly. Anyway, it sound weird to say, but those baby roaches are CUTE!

Congratulations on the first of probably millions to come! :lol: And YES you do sound weird calling them cute but I can understand where your coming from cuz my 5 yr. old daughter agrees w/ you 110%.

I noticed a ridiculous number of adult males as compared to the females. I didn't pay any attention until I noticed that some of the males had their wings chewed, which is a sign of aggression from other males (for various reasons).

I have posted a theory as to why there are more males than females before. Just my 2 cents. It's Mother Natures "Roach population" control considering how quick they reproduce. The faster they produce = more males and the slower they produce it starts to even out w/ species such as Hissers and Rhino Roaches... Again just my theory that I'm constantly trying to break free of, cuz we all know more roaches = happy lizards!

As for the excess males I actually have a bin of about 400 right now thanks to the fact that I'm constantly breeding up new colonies. I sell off to some of my customers in large lots. I at 50 cents each for them. For people who have one or two adult Beardies they love this cuz they they only buy food like once every month if they get 100 or so of them. I'm actually dropping this lot of them off in about 30 minutes. It's a little bit of work but I enjoy it.

-Ian

 

[sddragons]

As for your light. If it's keeping a good temp that's fine but remember these 2 things that mother nature has imposed on us.

1. Heat rises

2. Roaches do not like light. If it could stay dark 24/7 365 days a year they would gladly take it. More heat, darker container, and less disturbances = Unbelievable appetites, Quick Growth, and mucho grande' babies. In that order as well.

I have a ceramic heat element bulb in the dome not a heat light so I should be good there...

 

[patrickb]

How is everyone counting these things. I started with 430 mixed and 22 adult pair from the roach guy a couple weeks ago. I glued 3 whole pairs of egg crates and I have one loose one in there. How am I going to keep track of all of these and even know if they are breeding or not.
I have a dome with a 60w heat element shooting down thru the screen. Is this ok as opposed to heating from the bottom?
How long should I wait to started weeding out the adult males?

As long as your temps are high enough, they are breeding. No worries there. As far as counting, estimating is the best bet unless you really want to spend time counting. You get better at estimating as time goes along and your experience increases. Kind of a feel to it I guess. You could do it by hand which would be a fun hobby, or use a size sorting method, then count each set of sizes using calibrated vials or containers which give you a pretty accurate count. Calibrating the containers requires you to handcount a certain number of each size and put those in the container, then mark that level. You have to do this for each size. Takes some work upfront, but makes it easier if you are dealing with them in large volumes later. For your purposes, total overkill unless it is just something ya want to do.

The heat element from the top is fine. It may create a harsher drier heat and require more frequent replacing of the moisture source(s) but the roaches don't care either way. As long as its dark and they are warm, they will be happy.

You can start weeding out adult males now if you so please. I know opinions vary on this greatly, especially with the specific ratio of males:females, but basically you only need a few males overall. Personally, I just look through the eggcrates, and when I see more males than anything else, I remove most of them. Theoretically you could get by with just one male at any given point, and as they seem to be more common than females (maybe we just want to see females more dunno) there will always be fresh males up and coming. I even read a thread from one guy in another forum that only has one male in the entire colony at any given time. I wouldn't recommend that, but it is doable. I guess my practical advice would be to just look at the colony. If you see way more males than anything else, start removing them until it "looks" more balanced. With Dubia, the males stand out more too so it can seem like they are overwhelming. Ultimately, as long as you have mature females in there, you can't kill the colony by removing every single male. Might possibly slow down the production some, but not much.