Questions from a Dubia Owner

[burt1016]

Well a few years back, I made the great choice of purchasing a few hundred Dubia to start a colony. I will never regret that decision!

I'm hardly active on these forums, and honestly spend less and less time with my beardies, being in highschool is quite time consuming. I think I will be attempting to be more active in this community :shock: My Dubia colony was under sufferance from my neglect, after I dedicated a large amount of time to ensuring it was up and running properly. By this, I mean I would throw some food in every day and not much else.

Today, I had the fun task of ridding of the dead dubia carcasses, as I haven't cleaned or really done anything with the colony for a few months, closer to a year. I'm just going to estimate, but I'll say there was upwards of 200 dead adult males and females, . The egg cartons are near decimated, but I already placed an order for 75 online, (sadly they won't ship for a week as they are out of stock, and shipping looks as if it will take another 1-2 weeks ).

Now I think some of the die off was, well most of the die off was due to neglect, but also a huge part was overcrowding. I have them in a 29 gallon bin. I will probably be cleaning out the bin whenever the crates come.

After this wall of text and rant, my real question is how do people go about maintaining multiple colonies? As in one for feeders and one for breeders. Though my colony is not even half of what it was at one point in time, its still quite large (I think...). How often do you have to switch the feeder colony with the adults as the nymphs morph into adults and the adults die off? Do I need to continuously move adults over from the nymph bin to the adult bin? Does anyone know roughly how much time is added on with adding an additional bin for breeders?

I'm doing this for the chance to give away (With shipping costs )batches Dubia for people wanting to test out Dubia colony, as my two adults beardies eat only a few every few days, and I'm already investing time in maintaining the colony.

Thanks for reading, if you did.

 

[geckoboy3]

People take buckets with holes in them and sort them via size. However, since I assume you have an adult, you do not need to do this... Just feed off adult males.

How much would shipping be for the roaches?

 

[randommonks]

If you're giving away dubia, post them in the For Free section and watch them fly out of your hands! If you're wanting to sell them, you can post in the For Sale section for a $5 fee.

 

[burt1016]

If you're giving away dubia, post them in the For Free section and watch them fly out of your hands! If you're wanting to sell them, you can post in the For Sale section for a $5 fee.

Well there were other questions in my post as well.

 

[randommonks]

Well there were other questions in my post as well.

It's because I can't answer them :wink: . I've never had a separate bin for feeders and breeders. I have my dubia now in a smaller 10-15 gallon tub but I have a larger 20 gallon tub I used previously for a colony that's big enough for a medium sized colony. Males will fight over females and food, especially if it's scarce so it's a good idea to keep the number of males in your colony low. If you don't feed them, you can try donating them to a reptile rescue, selling them, giving them away, or simply freezing them.

Separate colonies seem to only add to the trouble or maintenance since you'll have to feed, water, and clean two or more colonies.

 

[unkempt1]

How big is your colony? If its smaller you can hand sort, but sorting using the bucket method mentioned for a bigger one would make the most sense.

I definitely see the benefit of maintaining two bins, but my dragon is only a few months old. You may want to consider having a bin of not nymphs, but of extra males that throw off the ratio of your breeder bin. This will also allow you to gutload your extra males with veggies that are good for your dragon, and offer higher protein options for your breeder bin.

 

[rafa2k]

I'm starting a Dubia colony myself. And even though it's not big by any standard, I do have separate bins for the nymphs and the adults.

From the research I have done, if there are a bunch of nymphs in the same colony as the adults, breeding is slow. It does have to do with crowding and food resources. Nature has a way of trying to compensate and not over populate, so it make sense that a jam packed bin would result in slow reproduction.

Again, mine has all been research and no actual experience yet but you should sort the nymphs after their first molt. My females just finished molting so I should hopefully see some reproduction soon. The bin method seems to be the easiest and fastest method of sorting. If you are looking to get rid of your colony PM me. We can work something out so it's mutually beneficial.

 

[unkempt1]

From the research I have done, if there are a bunch of nymphs in the same colony as the adults, breeding is slow. It does have to do with crowding and food resources. Nature has a way of trying to compensate and not over populate, so it make sense that a jam packed bin would result in slow reproduction.

Again, mine has all been research and no actual experience yet but you should sort the nymphs after their first molt.

I've actually seen arguments from both sides, that you should just have adults or that you should have some nymphs crawling around with them to give them that "colony" feel, which makes them more at home and more ready to breed. It's all anecdotal at best, just like the whole orange slices *bom chicka bow wow* thing. :lol:

I will agree that you shouldn't overcrowd, but when I have a mix in there that is not overcrowded they seem to prefer hanging out together. I would think that if they didn't want this, they could easily stay separated or force the little ones out to a less desirable place through aggression (you will see males doing this if you have too many, i.e. the ones that get beat up hang out in the fringes of the colony, and eventually, magically wind up dead :shock: ). I would also argue its darn-near impossible to overcrowd these guys because you can fit so many into such a small area when you use egg crates. Just my personal (and anecdotal experience :lol: ).

Cheers and have fun with the roach ranching!

 

[burt1016]

From the research I have done, if there are a bunch of nymphs in the same colony as the adults, breeding is slow. It does have to do with crowding and food resources. Nature has a way of trying to compensate and not over populate, so it make sense that a jam packed bin would result in slow reproduction.

Again, mine has all been research and no actual experience yet but you should sort the nymphs after their first molt.

I've actually seen arguments from both sides, that you should just have adults or that you should have some nymphs crawling around with them to give them that "colony" feel, which makes them more at home and more ready to breed. It's all anecdotal at best, just like the whole orange slices *bom chicka bow wow* thing. :lol:

I will agree that you shouldn't overcrowd, but when I have a mix in there that is not overcrowded they seem to prefer hanging out together. I would think that if they didn't want this, they could easily stay separated or force the little ones out to a less desirable place through aggression (you will see males doing this if you have too many, i.e. the ones that get beat up hang out in the fringes of the colony, and eventually, magically wind up dead :shock: ). I would also argue its darn-near impossible to overcrowd these guys because you can fit so many into such a small area when you use egg crates. Just my personal (and anecdotal experience :lol: ).

Cheers and have fun with the roach ranching!

Thanks, I know about the whole magic death thing. I see so many dead adults everyday I really need more egg crates, but they are on back order off the website I ordered them on. Perfect timing.

 

[randommonks]

Thanks, I know about the whole magic death thing. I see so many dead adults everyday I really need more egg crates, but they are on back order off the website I ordered them on. Perfect timing.

Try using toilet paper or paper towel rolls. The roaches I have pack themselves into those tubes.

 

[rafa2k]

Thanks, I know about the whole magic death thing. I see so many dead adults everyday I really need more egg crates, but they are on back order off the website I ordered them on. Perfect timing.

Try using toilet paper or paper towel rolls. The roaches I have pack themselves into those tubes.

Paper towel and toilet paper rolls work wonderfully

 

[rafa2k]

I know this is a somewhat old thread but I just wanted to update and announce my first attempt at breeding a colony of Dubias is starting to move along quite nicely. I definitely need to get more females, because the 100 I have are not going to be producing enough to support my current beardy, let alone the 2nd one I'm getting real soon. But they have started breeding which is AWESOME I see a bunch of tiny little nymphs running around