How many breeding Dubia can I keep in one tub?

[jharveyjr54]

I've been starting my own dubia colony, with the help of John at JD Roaches, and Lance(has anyone seen him, I can't even find any of his threads any more?), and the good folks at DubiDeli. My colony is going well, and I'm actually starting to be able to feed from it, although I have to let the little dubia grow some because they're a little tiny to feed Scooter at first. I have about 200-220 females and about 35 males. All my feeders are kept in 18 gallon sterilite totes, I have one for feeder dubia, one for breeders, and one for crix. My question is, how many adults can I keep it there? I was thinking of keeping up to 500 breeding females, and I was wondering if I would need a second tote to keep them in. I don't know if overcrowding is an issue or not with dubia.

 

[jharveyjr54]

Come on now, some one has an opinion!

 

[Trajega]

2 things. First, I think you are fine to have 750-1250 breeders, just make sure you have enough egg crates/ paper towel rolls.

Second, be carefull with your ratio. While you read over and over that you only need 1 male for x females, what you dont read is that males do not live near as long and you dont want to stunt your gene pool or breeding pool by going 1x 10 or lower

 

[jharveyjr54]

Cool cool. I'm about to order some males with my next shipment of females anyways. They do love the paper towel rolls, don't they? I had one in with some egg crates and when I looked in I thought I had a prison break. They were literally stuffed end to end in the paper towel roll. This gave me an idea I'm in the process of trying. My companies warehouse uses a ton of shrink wrap, and that comes on cardboard rolls that are thicker and heavier than paper towel rolls, and big enough you can almost fit your hand into them. So I had the warehouse guys save me a bunch, and I'm cutting them to length, and then I'm going to stack them inside, like pyramid style. I think it's gonna be pretty cool.