roaches escaping

[EnookiMacek]

hi

okay so im thinking of starting a dubia colony (my mom is freaking out ofc )..actually i am too..i hate roaches but my fella can't eat just worms all the time cuz they're just too fatty..(oh yeah he's a grown up male and is 3 years old :3)..and i tried to have a cricket colony but that ended badly with crickets escaping every time i opened the bin..so i decided to try and breed dubia roaches..already read lots about them (cant fly, climb etc.) so they're perfect really IF you wouldn't have to change the bin ..i read that when you change the bin (change the soil and all) they're is a big chance that you miss some of the roaches..and so they stay in the soil..you throw it out and they start multiplying next to your house..and i'm still afraid that some of the roaches might escape out of their enclosure and run freely round the house -.-..

so my question is - with proper care can that still happen? and how to clean the bin without any of them escaping, with what should you disinfect the bin and how to destroy the ones that could still be in the soil?

plus i'd love to hear about your experience on the dubia roaches escaping (has it happened to you yet, does it happen often, what to do if some escape etc.)

thanks for all the info

 

[Claudiusx]

Hi there,

By soil do you mean substrate? If substrate, you don't need to use any substrate at all, in fact you shouldn't.

If your talking about the frass (poo) then thats a different case.

When I clean out my bins I try my best to get out all the little babies, but honestly, its not worth the time to sit and try to pick out every single little baby. And honestly, after i'm satisfied I've gotten the bulk of the babies out from the frass at the bottom, I dump the tub down the toilet.

If you were to dump them outside, they most likely would die unless you are living in a tropical environment. But really, I wouldn't dump them outside lol.

-Brandon

 

[EnookiMacek]

Ups yeah i was talking about substrate :roll: ..

Okay so no substrate..

Dump everything down the toilet? good idea really ..(i actually never though about doing that )

And have any escaped since you've had them? (by escape i mean that a baby accidentally fell on the ground while you were cleaning the bin and you couldn't find it?)

A lot of stupid questions i know but they really scare me and i can't have them running round the house cuz everyone at home would freak..

 

[cr1chard]

I've had two escapes in the last two months. One was a small nymph that crawled into a space between the floor boards, and was never seen again. The other was an adult male, that I was able to grab and toss back into the bin. The benefit of these roaches is that our homes don't have the right combination of heat + humidity to facilitate proper molting and breeding, so the rare escapee will more than likely just die in a dark corner somewhere.

 

[EnookiMacek]

okay so they can escape..scary really..

but is there any other food source that can be fed daily? (except crickets and roaches)..

all the worms i've heard of are too fatty to be fed daily..

 

[EnookiMacek]

correction: any food source that you can successfully breed yourself

 

[Claudiusx]

Black Solider Fly Larva, depending on where you live in the USA.

But I would think flies buzzing and maggots would be worse than having roaches lol.

You can try your luck at breeding hornworms and silkworms, but they are pretty tough to breed. Definitely not the "drop them in a tub and let them have at it" like you can do with dubias.

Dubia are not like the cockroaches that infest houses, they can not survive in the environment we live in. The only way you will have escapes will be from you yourself giving them a way to, such as while cleaning out the bin. And even if you do, you will most likely see it and will be able to pick it up and place it back in the bin.

-Brandon

 

[EnookiMacek]

I'm still gonna give it some thought before i actually go through with that ..

But thanks for all the help

 

[Erimis]

I have not had escape issues with my dubia- they are fairly slow and when dropped usually land on their back and are stuck like turtles. :wink:
I think the nymphs are cute- like pill bugs. The adult females are kinda pretty. the males I really didn't want to touch for awhile. I used tongs for several days, except I kept dropping them and had to grab them (not real fast to get away), and now I can let them crawl on me- no problem.
There was one instance that I had an unknown escapee- my husband came into my bathroom one morning while I was showering and said "WHAT is THIS??????" It was a medium/large nymph- on his work pants that were hanging in his closet!! No idea how that happened but I grabbed it and held it while I finished rinsing my hair! :lol:
Just don't get Blatta lateralis- red racers, Turkish reds. They are gross and fast and I had a TON of escapees, found one in my sink again this morning. :shock:

 

[Chirple]

I've had over 1,500 nymphs so far in the past few months and never had an escape.

I dropped one, once, but I don't count that as an "escape" because that could happen to literally any feeder (and there are certainly worse to drop - faster ones). You just pick it back up.

I have a tub of adults that I'm going to try to turn into a colony (still need heating and egg trays, so they're not baby-making yet), and the worst they've done is knock over their water bowl and make a mess, so I'm going to finally get around to preparing their water crystals.

 

[Sapphire]

As long as you keep the heat source on the bottom (using a heating pad under the tub), they will generally not even attempt to climb the walls. They'll just stay on the bottom where it's warm. Put clear packing tape around the top edge of the tub so that if any of them DO decide to climb (which they typically don't), they won't be able to get out.

I've had a few escapes due to carelessness on my part, but probably no more than ten in a year and a half, whereas I had dozens of crickets escape in the time that I had them (about six months). Roach escapes do happen, but they're rare, and typically due to careless keeping rather than cleverness on the roaches' parts.

 

[EnookiMacek]

yeah i decided to try and breed them ..

after all they're good for my pretty dragon

 

[EnookiMacek]

ohh and thanks for all the help you guys

 

[HuckWeb]

Im in the same boat. I just started my roach coach actually Mine are in a tote in my room (on my side of the bed at the hubby's demand LOL) they're is no odor at all. When your cleaning the bin, watch for any that grab onto you like hitchhikers.

 

[jodyberry]

We have 5 beardies so every so often I might drop one and it scurries under the viv. But a few days later I'll either find it moving real slow, or one of our cats will have it cornered and playing with it!

Like others said, if you never find one that escaped, it probably died.

Funniest thing I saw only once was a dubia climbing the wall and had gotten about 8 feet up! So sad that after all that effort, he was dinner that day.