When can I stop buying crix after my dubia's get going

[sddragons]

I am only 2 months into my Dubia colonies and started out with about 460 dubia's. I had about 22 adults pairs to start and I now have about 60 adult females. I know that I need to raise the colonies for about 6 months at least. I will have 9 adult BD's by then and I assume many babies to feed.
I assume the adults will eat maybe 10 big roaches a day each? I just don't see how I will never NOT run out of roaches and have to buy crix again at some point.
Can someone explain this whole process to me? I can't seem to get a handle on having never ending feeders.... :?

 

[zebraflavencs]

You can do one of two things. Buy a second kind of roach, I use both turks and lobsters, as well as the dubias, or start separating the 60 females with 1-5 males each into 2 other containers. Either way, you will have feeders breeding, and for feeding.
Hope this helps out !
Janie.

 

[clear]

Once you have enough adult females to provide everything you need per month you should wait another 2 months for those babies to be big enough to feed off.

 

[diggerdrake]

figuring consertively you will need around 250 producing females with 25-50 males to keep the girls happy. it is do-able but a faster breeding roach as a supplement may be a good option also. turks breed fast but they are fast little buggers but can be slowed down putting them in the fridge for 5-10 minutes before feeding

 

[patrickb]

I assume the adults will eat maybe 10 big roaches a day each? I just don't see how I will never NOT run out of roaches and have to buy crix again at some point.

If they are truly adult beardies, it should probably be more like 15-25 roaches per a week, not a day. But all those baby beardies you have on the way is what will get ya. It may not seem like you will have a never ending supply, but you will eventually. With that many beardies though it is possible you will need a 2nd and maybe even a third bin of Dubia going (depending on the size of the bins) to support that many beardies and the babies. Give them time and don't overfeed from the colony and you will have way more than you need.

Breeding 10k roaches or only 1k per a month is the exact same. The only difference is that you will need a little more space and offer more food/moisture sources at a time when you are breeding more roaches. I would look into Turks or another species that is a faster breeder as well, if for nothing else, to have as a backup for the Dubia if you happen to overfeed from what ya got.

 

[sddragons]

Well I already separated my adults into a new bin about a month ago. Had almost 40 adult females and within 2 weeks I had what looks like to be a couple hundred babies in there with them. Then just last week I looked in my first bin and pulled out another 30 something adult females and stuck them in my second bin too. They are in the big rubbermaid bins so I think I have enough room for a while. I will let both these colonies go until the summer and see where I am at. I don't want any other type of roaches though. I am breeding supers too and have almost 100 beetles going now in my second bin already so hopefully by summer these will be a good size too.

I assume the adults will eat maybe 10 big roaches a day each? I just don't see how I will never NOT run out of roaches and have to buy crix again at some point.

If they are truly adult beardies, it should probably be more like 15-25 roaches per a week, not a day. But all those baby beardies you have on the way is what will get ya. It may not seem like you will have a never ending supply, but you will eventually. With that many beardies though it is possible you will need a 2nd and maybe even a third bin of Dubia going (depending on the size of the bins) to support that many beardies and the babies. Give them time and don't overfeed from the colony and you will have way more than you need.

Breeding 10k roaches or only 1k per a month is the exact same. The only difference is that you will need a little more space and offer more food/moisture sources at a time when you are breeding more roaches. I would look into Turks or another species that is a faster breeder as well, if for nothing else, to have as a backup for the Dubia if you happen to overfeed from what ya got.