Dubia's for one

[misfitchris]

Would having a dubia colony for one beardie be viable or will i end up with more roaches than he eats?

 

[beardieaddict]

its defanitly worth it yea u probablly will get more than u signed on for but one way so the dont breed so fast is dont put a haeting pad under the roach bin or another alternative is breed the roaches get a lot of them and sell them on here people are always buying roaches... good luck

 

[misfitchris]

would keepign them in a smaller container keep the population down?

of course the next step is to convince my wife these are good roaches that not only the future beardie can eat but the leopard geckos as well

 

[Twobeardieguy]

Roaches all the way!

 

[Triage]

If you have Gecko's too, I think you'll be alright.

 

[wes]

"Dubias for one" is a topic that I think needs to be addressed on this board. Most of the information comes from the breeders of dubias, who have a much different requirement than probably most of the rest of us do. While I really appreciate their information, especially their experience and feedback from customers, I don't know if I really need the colony size the large totes will hold.

Here is a comment I found while watching a Blaptica Dubia video on YouTube:

nice vid but most of the stuff is totally unnecessary
i keep mine in a 30x20x20cm plastic terrarium with 1cm of really really dry peat and 2 egg cartons
i simply put the plastic terrarium on top of the light box of my pacman frog's terrarium for warmth
no water/water crystals whatsoever, only oats & fresh salad twice a week, and never more than? they eat in 2h
works like a charm (as you can see in my vid)

His video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BMii9Bm8Ms

I saw another video with a small enclosure here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfC58dK-OxU

This second person ended up moving his roaches to a larger enclosure because he wanted a larger colony. But he started out with four roaches in an almost transparent, six quart container.

I want to point out that neither of these two have had roaches for very long, and haven't had to deal with the lowered temperatures and humidity those of us in the northern climates experience. Nevertheless, they seem to have had great success with their small colonies.

 

[Triage]

I think my 4 months old dragon would destroy the colony in the second video in week. And it took him "3 months" to get there from 4 roaches. I wouldn't suggest starting this way, unless your gonna get your dragon next year.

 

[misfitchris]

well I plan on just starting with a couple hundred next month. They'll stew so to speak for about a month while i get an enclosure built and THEN get a dragon.

 

[JeffSimpson]

I think you might be kind of surprise at a.) how slow it takes these things to establish a large enough colony and b.) how much little space they really actually need. I started with about ~200 about 2 months ago (Mostly nymphs, maybe 30 adults) in a 22 gallon container... and there's no way that they are ready to support a baby yet. If they are eating 40-70 baby roaches a day, you'll very quickly go through them if you have a small population.

Some quick facts from Wikipedia:

Lifecycle

* Gestation is about one month (28 days).
* The babies hatch inside the female. Between 20 and 40 live young, each about 2 mm long, are produced in each clutch.
* Babies mature in about 4-6 months depending on temperature and food supply.
* Adults live 1-2 years.

Takes a month for them to have the babies, they only have 20-40 at a time... those babies then take 4-6 months to be able to reproduce. I'm still "in process" with, and don't even have a BD yet, but I would recommend starting them way early. Give it 3-4 months before you start using them, and then you will be fine. You can of course just start with a few hundred females, and it will go much quicker, but you are going to be paying a lot more.

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

I get A LOT of questions from people about this subject. "How many Dubia should I get for 1 dragon?" First of all Reptiles are addicting! So I pose this question to everyone who asks me the above question. "Do you plan on expanding your reptile collection?" The reason I ask this is because breeding ANY type of feeder, not just roaches, takes a little bit of time to establish a colony. If you plan on getting more animals that will utilize feeder roaches then you want to plan for that. For those people who just have 1 dragon as a family pet and are sick and tired of running out to the pet store I suggest 100 roaches to start. That's it. Most dealers offer a percentage on the overcount as well. Out of 100 nymphs you'll end up w/ 40-60 females and the rest will be males.

Another GREAT aspect about Dubia roaches is that they are sexually dimoriphic. This means that you can tell a female from a male by just looking at them. This comes in very handy when keeping a colony under control. I personally do not understand how a small colony of Dubia gets "out of control". I can only assume that it comes down to laziness as there are 2 very efficient ways to slow down breeding or stop it altogether and they only take a few minutes of someones time. IF you feel that your colony is ramping up too fast simply turn down your heat so that ambient temps in their enclosure are in the low 70's. If that doesn't work separate all the males from the females. This is easily done within 10 minutes or so in a small colony. Now I'm not poking fun at anyone who has had a colony blow up, especially since most people overlook those two steps. However I do know quite a few people who HAVE known about these two steps and let their colonies get out of control. At that point then it's all on their shoulders as this could have easily been avoided.

I have to keep my colonies in check, sorted and accounted for so that when I get an order I can efficiently get an order out the door, properly packaged and on it's way to my customers ASAP. So I guess what I'm saying is that if I can do that w/ hundreds of thousands of roaches than someone who has a few hundred should never ever have a colony get out of control. Breeding your own feeders is a wonderful experience that is very rewarding. However in doing so you have to treat them as an entity in and within themselves. They ARE food, BUT they need to be attended to on a daily basis just as you would your Bearded Dragon(s). The whole key is to set yourself up properly so that you aren't wasting anymore time than you have to caring for them. Breeding feeders is a hobby in itself and hobbies are meant to be fun! Remember that!

-Ian
http://www.theroachranch.com

 

[misfitchris]

Thanks for all the replies.

When I say a couple hundred I"m merely talking about more than one...was thinking more along the lines of 300-400. I do have two leopard geckos, and until those pass as does my wife's snake then this beardie will probably be the end of my reptile collection.

Feeders as a hobby I'm actually looking forward to. One big reason I want to breed feeders is because of my insatiable animosity to petco.

Again thanks for all the info and as soon as I can I think I'll be ordering a few from you Ian.

 

[Triage]

Breeding feeders is a hobby in itself and hobbies are meant to be fun! Remember that!

That's the way I look at it. And the Dubia are fascinating to observe. I started to breed crickets and they stunk. I successfully have bred meal worms. And now I'm thinking about a superworm colony. After that, silkworms!!! Man, this is getting out of control!!!!!!! Who knows after that. :shock:

 

[tklemerand]

Would having a dubia colony for one beardie be viable or will i end up with more roaches than he eats?

I started Breeding Roaches this past summer here in So Cal. I started with a 40 count... Now I have well over 5k. I was buying crickets bye weekly and It saves me 80.00 a month. I feed my dubias a mix of Hi protein meal and butter squash and bananas. Winter here in Cali does not seem to bother them, 60-70 degrees in my garage.... during spring and summer will keep them at about 85-92. If you are near Long Beach ca I can sale you some....and teach you what I know.......