How many dubias do babys eat/How many females per colony?

[Alex52686]

So I just sexed and counted out my colony to see where I am at. As of rite now I have 80 nymphs which I didn't bother sexing, 43 females, and 47 males. I separated the 43 females into a separate container with 10 males. The container has holes in the bottom which I hope the nymphs will leave out of after they're born. I understand that females will produce about 15-35 nymphs a month depending who you are talking to on the forum. For safety sake we'll say 20. So the one variable I'm missing to determine when my colony is ready is how many nymphs my baby will eat per day. I don't want to experiment with the few roaches I have so I was hoping some one could give me a conservative estimate of how much their baby eats. Saphira is just about 10 weeks old and is 8.5", 20 grams. I'm hoping it's only around 20per day which means that I just have to wait for all my females to mature

As always appreciate the help guys

 

[Alex52686]

So I talked to Jason, TheRoachGuy. He says that 20 nymphs a day is about rite and that he suggests 100 females to to sustain a colony and feed a single dragon comfortably but guesses I can do it off 80. 50-60 to feed the dragon 20-30 to keep the colony going. Thanx again Jason! http://www.theroachguy.com

 

[patrickb]

That sounds about right. That would be about 600 dubia per a month. I use the 15 number for estimating production myself since it is very conservative (they produce closer to 25 nymphs per a month on average). By doing that I can feed from the colony when I have enough females and it will still grow and have new females maturing to replace older breeders. In your case, it would take 40 mature females to feed you dragon if she eats 20 a day, which means you could start feeding from the colony now and still allow for the size of the colony to grow.

 

[LQDragons]

not to burst your bubble but a young dragon will eat more than 20 nymphs a day. My youngest would eat 70-100 approprietly sized nymphs,a day, from 8 weeks old till now, shes 5 months old 18" & 320 grams

 

[Alex52686]

ouch...ok that changes my calculations slightly. Maybe I'll buy another batch of mixed roaches

 

[LQDragons]

yea, I'd buy as many as you can afford now & then buy some more when you can

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

This seems to be a question that I can't get a definative answer on, especially when it comes to the case of Bearded Dragons. It varies as much from hobbyist to hobbyist and breeder to breeder than ever. W/o causing a stir on this thread let me first say that I've asked this question about 1000 times to 1000 different people. So believe me when I say that I'm not saying anyone is right or wrong here.

The most popular answer that I've got was that "Dubia" Roaches cut down their dragons feeder intake about 30-40% a day. Now before I get lambasted hear me out. Combined w/ a good diet of greens and vegetables for an adult this sounds like it makes sense. From my understanding hatchlings and juvies tend be a more insectivorious and obviously Dragons grow pretty quick, so you probably feed them 2-3 times a day(?)... BTW feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Here's my question. A big selling point for Roaches are their nutrition value and meat to shell ratio. If they have a higher meat to shell ratio than crickets wouldn't they fill the stomach of a Dragon up quicker and on fewer feeders?

-Ian

 

[Alex52686]

I think one variable might be the size of the nymphs people are feeding. I would guess that allot of people are being cautious and feeding very small nymphs when they could be feeding ones that are a tad bit larger. Of course not exceeding the between the eye rules. I'm guessing that by mass and volume the Beatles have substantially more content to fill the Beardies stomach. When I get back after break I'm going to freeze and weight an adequately sized roach and cricket just out of curiosity. I would guess that proportion of the weight difference would be somewhat close to the proportion of roaches needed compared to crickets. If anyone has a small graduated cylinder I would be interested to see a volume difference as well. you'd have to tie a small weight to them and take into account the volume of the weight, Just food for thought.