Hope this isnt a stupid dubia question

[rsmit02]

Hi all,

I am setting up my own dubia colony I have one dragon but planning my second so im gonna need me a cheaper staple!

I currently just order them online and feed them to my dragon. My question is can I establish a colony with an extra online order or are their special breeder roaches I need to buy? Also how many males to females should I have for breeding enough to feed a 6 month and soon baby dragon? How do you tell the males from the females?

My set up is nearly ready, rubbermaid tote with hole cut in lid and mesh on. Zilla heating pad under tote, egg carton stack ordered along with dubia feed with orange added and water crystals from beardeddragon.co site. I think that coveres it right?

Love this site and you guys such amazing info!

 

[jezwolf175]

Hmm well to get a big enough colony it may be in your best interest to get some adults along with some mixed sizes. Then you want to leave them alone for awhile so that the colony establishes itself and is able to grow. The ratio for them is 5 females to 1 male. The females are big with little wing stubs. The males look like your typical roach they are long and slender with wings. There is a way to tell them apart when they are still young but idk how...i started with 10 females and 2 males but realized how slow that would take me to breed them. So I bought 50 more females and 5 more males. The company didn't send any males the first time so they sent them the next time with extra males. I also won an auction for 500 mixed sizes and I started this around November of last year.

I believe that a female lays 20-30 babies a month in an established colony.

 

[unkempt1]

Definitely not stupid questions! The post above has good info in it. When it comes to how many females you will need, you are the best judge of how many roaches your dragon eats each month since you already buy them. One female produces on average about 25 babies a month. Keep the male/female ratio right and there you have it!

Keep in mind I said 25 babies a month on average. You will soon notice females usually take around 6 weeks to give birth, with a clutch of anywhere from 20-40 babies usually. Hence the 25 rule is a pretty sound (albeit mostly conservative) rule of thumb.

 

[daner923]

Just be aware that it can take 5-6 months to get a colony self-sustaining. If you don't wait, you will deplete and kill off your colony before it is big enough.

 

[jaycobain]

That's for sure. I got my colony several weeks ago and no one has had babies yet. There's a total of 100 roaches and only 4 of them are males and one male has it's wings all messed up :x We're getting impatient so we'll probably order some more and from someone else. Their slowly getting fed off to our beardies as treats but if they don't start reproducing soon enough they'll be gone.

 

[daner923]

I ordered bigger quantities a couple times. My colony is nearing the self-sustaining level - I'm getting more than 1,000 babies a month now. You probably need to have a good 50 females and 10 males to really get things going. I have about 125-130 females and about 25 males in a separate bin, and then all the younger ones and extra males are separate.