How many roaches should I be feeding?

[PoliticalKid]

I'm trying to decide between dubia roaches and crickets for my new dragon's main feeder insect. I don't really want to deal with escaped crickets in the house so I'm leaning towards the roaches. The only thing that's stopping me from going ahead and ordering them is that despite my best efforts I can't find any website that gives an estimate of how many I'll be feeding. I don't want to pay $19 for 50 roaches to find out that I'm feeding 30 a day. Can someone please tell me how many roaches I could expect to feed a baby dragon? Thanks for the help!

 

[Claudiusx]

You probably will be feeding 30+ a day if you have a growing dragon.
Dubia roaches aren't really an insect you buy to feed off. You buy them to start your own colony, so that you can start breeding them to the point where they are producing enough, or more than enough, to sustain the reptiles you are feeding.

-Brandon

 

[saiyan25]

I used to feed my baby bearded dragon 50 extra small nymphs a day. But I was probably overfeeding him. There is a huge price difference in the market, I had to search more than 15 different sellers to get a good deal. Good luck!

 

[Sauzo]

Harley is almost 4 months old and between 11-12 inches and she eats anywhere from 30-45 1/2 inch to 5/8 inch dubias a day a long with a few pieces of greens. Some days it varies and she will eat more greens and less dubias and some days opposite but like I said the average is 30-45 a day. She's a porky though, got a huge pot belly and loves to sit on her hammock and watch people or stare at the tv. Also $19 for 50 roaches is expensive as hell unless they are large nymphs. I'm assuming since you said "baby dragon" you don't mean large nymphs. I get mine from http://buydubiaroaches.com/. You can also get em from http://www.dubideli.com/Home_Page.php although I haven't personally but I heard pretty good reviews from BOI of the Faunaclassifieds.

But the best bet is start a colony. I'm stuck at the moment since I think my die off from my colony has stopped and now they are growing and breeding but I need to wait for the baby roaches to grow some now as well as adding about another 50 adult females to bring me up to 100 adult females to make sure I got extras. Seems adult dubias don't really like being shipped long distances in very hot weather.

 

[PoliticalKid]

What exactly goes into breeding them? I'm not a huge fan of insects, I tolerate them because I love reptiles. The local mom and pop pet store is offering me a pretty good price on crickets so I might just do that. For those who feed roaches do you think they are superior to crickets or is it all the same?

 

[Soulwind]

Breeding them is really very easy, as long as you've got some space to keep them (basement, unused closet, etc).

I do little more than check on them and add chow, add water crystals, and replace the fresh fruits and veggies before they go moldy, about every 3 days.

There's tons of threads in here on setting up a breeding colony.

Advantages of Dubia:
Dubia are MUCH more nutritious than crickets.
They have several times the meat-to-shell ratio as crickets.
They have a very mild smell compared to a bunch of crickets.
They don't make noise.
They are poor climbers and don't escape very easily.
They don't bite or chew on your dragons the way crickets can.

Disadvantages of Dubia:
They are lots more expensive than crickets. Enough so, that it's really not
a viable choice to buy them as a primary feeder without running your own colony
(at least until your dragon is grown up and starts eating less buggies per day).

Setting up a colony requires either Money (to buy lots of adults/near adults) or
Time (to let smaller nymphs grow up and establish the colony).

Some folks can't get around the "roach" label.