Starting a Dubia Colony

[mom2twinsplus2]

The person I bought my beardie from is interested in starting a dubia colony. She has 6 adult and 4 or 5 juvi beardies and I am not sure how often she breeds typically but I think it is not all that often..she is more a hobbiest than a breeder, I think. Anyhow, she offered me free dubias for live if I wanted to purchase the starter dubias for her or else to split a big order with me for us both to breed them...I really, really, really hate the crickets I have living in my garage at the moment and my Beardie is currently not eating them anyhow so I am thinking Dubia would be better than them for both of us....but I really don't love the idea of breeding roaches at all....so I am thinking that buying a bunch for her to get a colony started would be fabulous for both of us. We ultimately would need enough for something like 8-ish Beardies I guess....she also breeds her own crickets and is really close to having her on superworm colony as well (she has some good sized beetles now so it should be soon, I guess) so this would not be the only feeder for either of us but we would need a good size colony, I guess.

Can anybody give me an idea of how many adults I should get for her to get her started or if I get hte mixed colonies...can you give me a sense of how long it would be till we had a good sized colony starting from...say 100 mixed colony with 2 pairs vs a 500 mixed colony with 5 adult pairs....I am interested in how long it would take to have enough to start feeding out of the colony especially.

Also, I know she makes her own chow for her crickets and her superworms...I am not sure what is in it but I think it is bran based...would that work for hte dubia as well?

Thanks so much!

Alison

 

[LQDragons]

to start feeding from right away, get as many adult females, a few adult males, & as many mixed nymphs as you can afford

 

[mom2twinsplus2]

Um..yeah, OK...but a few more details than that would be helpful. I suppose if I wanted to invest all my saving in roaches, I could feed from it right away but assuming I am not going to empty my kids college funds...what kind of numbers would get us going with a sustaining colony in a month...what kind of numbers would get a sustaining colony in 2 months...

thanks!

Alison

 

[Sunshinessmile]

I ordered the 1000 mixed from THEROACHGUY.com he is adding 35% more to it for the month of August and it comes with 1350mixed with 25 adult pairs for only $110 which is one heck of a deal(something like 8c a roach)


Your other option is to do turks, they tend to be cheaper per roach, however they are a bit smaller and a LOT faster than Dubai.

As for the cricket feed, I would think it would work as well, I ordered mine with my roach order... lol

 

[EXOTIXSA]

Hi Alison

I would say buy a large colony if you want to start feeding straight away, but in another container keep about 60-100 roaches of different sizes ( I usually make sure that I have 3 females per male ) keep them well nourished, ventilated, dehydrated and warm, you should have a large colony within 3 months.

Good Luck

There's a huge Dubia drought in South Africa, I can't find Dubia anywhere I have a small colony of about 40 but due to the cold weather they aren't breeding. People are asking R1.50 a roach here...it's crazy, that'd be 25c for you guys, I think. :mrgreen: