What's keeping you from startin a Dubai colony?

[JessySihk]

I recently got 100 roaches for $50 =] best $50 ever spent i hope, These dubias seem like something all my reptiles love soo far but they each only got 1 as a treat, im letting them breed now, i cant wait until we can stop feeding crickets ugh! nasty smelly things.

 

[diggerdrake]

Initial investment and availability was the key factors in starting a dubia colony. Just the other day I was cruising around the net and found a local that was selling off some of his colony I got the hook-up 250/$30 That should be a nice supplement to the others that I origionally got from Jason. The initial 400 I got has kinda dwindled as we started feeding before the colony established. With the 250 I am getting I plan on weeding out some feeders and let the breeders do their thing for a couple months. I been trying to get superworms delivered and have recieved 2 shipments of 500 DOA thanks in most part to UPS holding them overnight just a few miles from me. Maybe I should hhave popped for the extra $$ for overnight. Well I ended up with a refund and ordered from another source that included o/n shipping. Got 1000 coming and looking forward to setting up breeding them ASAP. I been reading and I believe I have everything I am gonna need to start. And I will also be able to feed off the origional 1000 as they morph and breed. Should be free of buying feeders very soon.

 

[Grixxly15]

Space is the reason why I don't have dubia. I just don't have the space in my bedroom for a big bin full of dubia.

 

[JessySihk]

The bin doesnt have to be very big depending on how many you put to a bin and you can stack them =] anywhere like a closet or even under the bed works if the container is short enough or if your bed has large amount of space beneath. You could get rubbermaid containeds as big as say a standard 20 gallon tank and then stack them, they take up little more than a square foot of space.

 

[beardiebandit]

lol! roaches rule and crix drool! i absolutly hate crix! i would buy 6k at a time! talk about annoying! chirping and jumping! i dont miss any of that non sence! dubia are slow and easy to feed and if you pick the right size for your dragon they dont eat that many at a time before they are full. put it this way i have a large male that would seriously eat crix all day and never stop! i feed him 7 large nymphs yesterday and he was about to pop! : ) I LOVE DUBIA!!!! O and did i mention that they dont smell at all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[blondie098]

Ha, we're building ours now, and I am still creeped out handling the adults. The females are pretty, all striped, brightly colored. The males are just, well, creepy. Temps are very important, tho, or they won't breed!

Ok, if they aren't "climbers", they why did I scream last week? Went in to feed/water the dubia, and I am soooo glad I looked at the screen before I opened the lid! We have ours in a 29 gal large blue bin, I cut a large rectangle and glued screen on top for ventilation. We have the traditional 30-egg cartons in there on end for their hidey... and darnit if a couple males didn't flitter up to the screen! Just hanging out there waiting to freak me out... EEEK!

So I scream, and I'm in there beating on the lid, and all the kids come running. "What's wrong?" Everyone in my house thought I encountered a tarantula!

BTW, use a large smooth plastic cup to gently scoop 'em up outta the bin, then just pickout the ones that are too large... everyone hiding? Give the egg cartons a gentle earthquake.

Who mentioned keeping them under the bed?!? Are you nuts?!? Nooooo way... our bin "sizzles" at night... I swear they're having a party at lights out! I keep expecting my iPod to magically come on and play "La-cu-ca-racha!" My hubby does exhibit signs of mild allergy to them, so they must stay on the first floor for us. We keep the frass cleaned, and they are fed all the time, but he still got very snuffly when I hid them under the quilt rack for a week.

 

[h0ndap0w3r]

my whole thing was the time investment, which i had bought my original 125 back in sept, come jan i have somewhere around 100+ males, over half of which im feeding off, 100 adult females, with another 100 or so close to adult females and an unknown number of nymphs. I think it was the time investment, not so much the amount of money it took to get started.

i honestly bought the roaches and waited for them to get to my house before i told anyone what they were. my mom almost flipped, but couldn't do anything since they were here.

I also hate crix's i have about 2k sitting in my bathroom in a rubbermaid, chirping away, and jumping out at feeding time. However it is convinient that my youngest is going through her i want to eat anything and everything stange so the 2k of crickets shouldn't last to much longer.

I have also come to find out that Rainbow Mealworms is literally 15 mins away, so i can get cheap supers, meals, wax and crickets for dirt cheap.

I love my roaches, even tho everyone else is like Ewwwwww!

 

[clear]

Certain breeds of roaches are as cheap as crix, I just can't stand the idea of them climbing glass!

Turks are about the same price as crickets and dont climb glass. Lobsters are cheaper but climbs glass. Turks dont stink as bad as lobsters do!

 

[ikkie78]

I can't wait to get my dubia and i'm not a bug person at all! I was gonna order this week but then the temps dropped to like 30 below zero so I'm gonna wait a little longer until it warms up...I'm getting impatient though because I'm going to get a colony going first before I get my beardie so i'm all set and won't have to buy feeders at all! haha! I never thought of them before I came here and read all the great comments about them! Thanks everyone! I hate crickets so you all helped alot!

 

[Theroachguy]

I just love to read all the great stories from all my fellow roach clubbers. I hated having crix back before I knew about roaches. It was a pain keeping them. If it wasn’t the corn chip mixed with a funky foot odor that was filling my house it was the 500 out of a 1000 dead ones. I was cleaning that tote out twice a week to keep the smell down.

Until one day I was at a reptile expo and a guy traded me 500 for dragon. It was a 3-month-old baby that was fire red I was selling them for 100 to 200 all day long. Keep in mind this was 5 years ago before the market was flooded and when a red dragon was still a rare sight. So this guy beside me kept on and on how good they where and I was sold.
At the end of the expo I had 2 dragons left and I made a deal with him for a trade and gave the other to a young child that stopped by my table and was just amazed at the color of a red dragon but could not convince her mom to pay that much.

I was riding home listing to my wife telling me how stupid I was for doing this lol but about 8 months later I never spent one red sent on a feeder again. I loved them some much I sold off all my breeder dragons and kept the older dragons as our family pets so I could go into the feeder business. I then let the roaches breed for almost 2 years and now as of last year a rolled out as The Roach Guy.
Long story I know got carried away lol but I would recommend roaches to anyone they have save me thousands in feeder bills over the years and the piece of mind when having company over I’m not wondering if the house smells like funk from the crix tote.

 

[citrusdragon]

LOL ... cool testimony Jason. My colony just keeps growing. I just check in every few days, and resupply water or veggies. I need to add to the colony once I get rid of these 50 or so baby dragons :shock:
It will be soon enough.

I can remember seeing posts about roaches, a long time ago, and I thought "RIGHT, like I'm going to bring roaches home on purpose" ROFLMAO, look at me now.

Singing a different tune now

Jeff