More protein for Dubia?

[jharveyjr54]

I read the other day here on the forums that Dubia will cannibalize, by way of eating the wings off of males, if they're not getting enough protein. So I cleaned out a couple die offs today, and I noticed they had their wings chewed pretty good. I noticed about 1/4 of my live males also seemed to have a little bit of their wings chewed at the end. Am I looking at a protein issue? Is there anything I can add to the chow I'm already giving them to up the protein?

 

[lauraj1055]

What are you using for chow? I make my own which consists of honey wheat cheerios, layenna, Iams kitten chow, bee pollen, alfalfa and orange juice powder. They eat it up like crazy and I don't' have any males with their wings chewed off. I have heard the same thing also.

 

[jharveyjr54]

Well, I had been using chow that I got from a starter colony I had gotten on here. I bought some more from Dubi Deli last week when I purchased more females for my colony. I also have oats in there, just like regular old raw quaker oats. I've cut back to giving them raw fruits and veggies to once or twice a week and trying to only leave them in there for 24 hours, as works been horrendous, 14 hour days six days a week, I forgot to get the food out in time and had a little mold, and 1 or 2 deaths, but it's been a couple weeks since I switched to this schedule. I just got my new females last week on Thursday, and Sunday I separated all my baby feeders out, so maybe the die offs were natural or from stress.

 

[Goodtruant]

Ours is a mix of cat food (Max Cat), Exo Terra Bearded Dragon Pellets, bee pollen, calcium powder, and rep-cal multivitamin. The cat food and dragon pellets are high in protein.

OJ powder sounds interesting.

We usually use squash for veggies, our dubia devour that stuff like candy!

 

[Buckmaster299]

When you say orange juice powder, would he Tang stuff work?

 

[XtinaBeardieMom]

Just a side note - try not to give your dubias TOO much protein. They can easily develop gout, which causes massive die offs. Do you ever let your dubias run out of food in general? If you have a large enclosure then you should put two food/water dishes in the corners opposite of each other diagonally. Sometimes the males wings will get chewed off by other dubias who are simply hungry... it doesn't always signify a protein deficiency. Good luck!

When you say orange juice powder, would he Tang stuff work?

Nah, that stuff is mostly just sugar. You can buy orange juice powder here >>> http://www.beardeddragon.co/index.php?route=product/product&path=62&product_id=133 and/or at some grocery & health food stores.

 

[Buckmaster299]

Thanks

 

[Buckmaster299]

Lol. That would explain y my roaches r goin nuts. I never heard them move around in cafe that much till I sprinkled some tang on food. I hope it don't kill them... :-(

 

[jharveyjr54]

No, I've never let them run completely out of food. As a matter of fact, till I stopped giving them fruit everyday, I thought they weren't eating at all. Crickets eat so much it's easier to tell. Since I started feedingtthem fruit only once or twice a week, I've noticed some of the fruit kinda hollowed out. I've also noticed the oats that always start out in their dish end up on the other side of the tote. Oh, and a fair amount of poop. That's definitely a sign they're eating. I keep them in an 18 gallon tote, and the egg crates that I have in there end only a couple of inches away from the food and water crystal dish. I haven't been adding any protein as of yet, but I'm really excited about that citrus powder idea.

 

[XtinaBeardieMom]

One last possibility... maybe you have too many adult males? I've read that if you let the adult male to adult female ratio get too high then the males can become aggressive towards each other - but I'm really not sure how valid that is. I have way too many adults on general, so I'm trying to sell some off. If you give them more protein & that works then let me know, I'm very interested to find out! I'll see if I have any citrus juice powder left at my bakery that I can send you to try

 

[XtinaBeardieMom]

Lol. That would explain y my roaches r goin nuts. I never heard them move around in cafe that much till I sprinkled some tang on food. I hope it don't kill them... :-(

Hahaha, that's hilarious! Cracked out roaches :shock: Dubias actually loooove sugar... I bet they'll be just fine, but I wouldn't recommend doing it again lol - more for the sake of the animals who are eating the roaches.

 

[jharveyjr54]

That would be awesome! I'll look around the back of my truck tomorrow, see if I can find some spare booze to send you in return ;-) ;-) I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 200-225 females and if I recall correctly less than 30 males. There's always an outside possibility that they aren't chewed and just got beat up somehow. I did just separate out most of my babies last weekend, and I mostly do it by hand, so, I guess the best I can do is keep an eye on it for the time being. I'll definitely keep you posted.

 

[Buckmaster299]

Yeah they were acting like they got a line of coke. Just skurrying all around the cage. It was funny and I couldn't figure it out. I removed the food from the bin and am making a new batch of food for them. Do you think that this sugary stuff would hurt to give it to them maybe once a week? Just to keep them peppy? LOL

 

[Buckmaster299]

question: How popular do ya'll think pinnapple powder would be with the roaches and would it serve a purpose???

 

[jharveyjr54]

Isn't pineapple kinda like a citrus, full of the same vitamins and minerals and stuff and plenty sweet? Citrus is supposed to make them breed better. Its worth a shot.