My Dubia Colony (15 months later)

[BlueDevil]

I started my colony March 2010 with a mix of a couple hundred adults and babies/nymphs. Not sure how many I got but I've probably culled close to 1000 (not including the ones I feed off) adult males in the last 6 months?

They are being housed in a 29 gal RubberMaid bin. It's hard to tell from the pics but there are 10 egg crates and they are slowly collapsing due to the humidity and weight of the roaches.

I have since turned off the heat mat and stopped using water crystals. I'll probably have to start another bin this summer.

For those starting a new colony for yourselves be patient, for a long time I was wondering if my colony was taking off. My colony was started 4 months before I even got my dragon so I was able to feed out of it immediately. There are tons of resources in the Feeder forum and tons of people willing to share information. Oh, If you are running a temp probe into the bin, don't forget to wrap the upper portion of the cable with packing tape or vaseline as those little buggers use it as a guy-wire to freedom and will make it out even with the lid on, LOL!!!!!

 

[Sherri]

Wow, looks good

Ouch though...I hope it does not take 4 months for me to start feeding out of mine *sigh*. I just started mine 2 weeks ago and was hoping for some babies in about 2 months from then....yikes.

I started with 100 female and 20 males 2 weeks ago and added 100 more female and 20 more male a few days ago. I am buying feeders for our guy, but he is going through 1,000 of them in less than a month LOL That is so expensive, more than I spend on our family for food :shock:

Maybe you will end up having to sell some!

Again, looks good...did you already try putting the egg crates in on end rather than stacked? I am trying to decide which is really better.....or if it's just personal choice

 

[BeardedDragonCo]

Egg crates on end don't fill up with poo as fast! A friend brought her colony over to clean after 6 months and we took out 6 gallon buckets of poo.... it was an 18 gallon rubbermaid bin 1/3rd filled with poo. We're talking a colony with probably 10,000 dubia in it too.... insane!

 

[BlueDevil]

Yeah they weight of the crate is flattening them so they look stacked. I have run them lengthwise as well as tried making roach hotels and hot glue 1/2 a crate to each other. That sure kept the heat in but once they collapse it was a pita to get the little guys out. I'm tinkering around trying to come up with a stabilization system of some sorts.

Would you happen to have a pic of what a colony of 10 000 dubias look like?

This was my colony 4 months ago (in a smaller bin)

 

[BlueDevil]

A pic of my colony today, can't even see the egg crates anymore except in a few spots!!!!! Going to have to clean out the bin again!!!! The temps of my bin range from 68-72 degrees (taken with a temp gun) and there are still babies everywhere.

 

[12many]

can you use the poo as fertilizers?

my mom has vegetables and roses in the backyard so she buys a lot of fertilizers. it'd be nice if these poops were useful...

 

[hammerhead]

can you use the poo as fertilizers?

my mom has vegetables and roses in the backyard so she buys a lot of fertilizers. it'd be nice if these poops were useful...

It makes a great fertilizer. I have seen it sold online and they put it in "tea bags" for indoor plants and sell it. I've used it for years in my garden.

 

[Sherri]

can you use the poo as fertilizers?

my mom has vegetables and roses in the backyard so she buys a lot of fertilizers. it'd be nice if these poops were useful...

It makes a great fertilizer. I have seen it sold online and they put it in "tea bags" for indoor plants and sell it. I've used it for years in my garden.

Another great thing to know! I may not tell guests who come for supper, however! (well, not until AFTER they have eaten their greens Bwahaha :mrgreen: People *are* fickle...I mean, poo is...well, poo regardless. And the way we care for our bugs??? They are healthier than most would imagine

 

[12many]

ok great thx

 

[Sapphire]

Your colony is huge! Mine is about a year old and probably similar in size, but I've separated them all into 3-4 different bins... They all hide in the egg crates so it seems like I don't have that many, until I try to pick up the egg crates and the weight of the roaches makes the crate rip. :shock:

 

[BlueDevil]

Your colony is huge! Mine is about a year old and probably similar in size, but I've separated them all into 3-4 different bins... They all hide in the egg crates so it seems like I don't have that many, until I try to pick up the egg crates and the weight of the roaches makes the crate rip. :shock:

Ya I have some days off, I am leaning towards a 2nd bin.

 

[Sapphire]

Your colony is huge! Mine is about a year old and probably similar in size, but I've separated them all into 3-4 different bins... They all hide in the egg crates so it seems like I don't have that many, until I try to pick up the egg crates and the weight of the roaches makes the crate rip. :shock:

Ya I have some days off, I am leaning towards a 2nd bin.

That might be a good choice. lol. I doubt they are all getting enough food with that much competition in there, too, unless you give them a massive amount of food each day. I just put a whole apple into each of my roach bins and within an hour there was barely anything left in any of the bins. :shock: They sure do love fresh fruit.

 

[BlueDevil]

Well this evening I separated them into two bins, one breeder bin the other is a feeder bin. Unfortunately because of the egg crates collapsing on top of each other it made it pretty much impossible to pull all the smaller nymphs out so I took alot of the med/large sized nymphs for the feeder bin and was able to come across 1020 adult females for the breeder bin. But I didn't realize I had was soo short on males and was only able to find 6 of them. LOL!!!! I should have taken pics just totally got wrapped up in trying to get everything done this evening.

 

[Sapphire]

Wow, only six males?! From my experience, there always seems to be more males than females... That's crazy. Maybe they're eating all the males, lol.

 

[BlueDevil]

Wow, only six males?! From my experience, there always seems to be more males than females... That's crazy. Maybe they're eating all the males, lol.

I culled almost 300 just a couple of week's ago, I miscalculated, LOL! Ah well.