When should I start a dubia colony?

[Oki05]

So I have decided to get a bearded dragon either by mid May or early June and I have decided instead of crickets I feed it dubias but when should I start a colony so that I will have food available for my beardie? ALso how old should my beardie be before it eats dubias

 

[luissandoval87]

You can start whenever you want really. Some people will actually sell pre-made colonies on eBay and other websites online. They're already settled so they're already growing. Basically just gotta keep on feeding the roaches and cleaning their little home. What takes long for some people is to get the dubia colony started so if you wanna start your own you'd have to buy a couple of adult females i'd say atleast 10 and maybe 3 adult males, and a lot of nymphs (young roaches) in different sizes. Then give them roach chow (you can either buy online or google home made roach chow recipes) and water crystals (an alternative is wet towel, but it's a bit of a hassle since you have to constantly make sure it's wet enough to supply dubia with drinking water). After some time you should see more and more roaches when you see that then you know you've got a colony going. As soon as they begin to reproduce you'll know because they just won't stop reproducing and you'll have a massive colony.
Your beardie doesn't have to be a certain age to start eating dubia, or anything for that matter. All you have to do is make sure that whatever you're feeding him is about the size of the space between his eyes. You want to avoid him eating anything significantly larger than that because he may choke on it. So you can feed him so really tiny dubia nymphs if he's a baby dragon.
Sorry if that's too long, but I hope it helped...a little...

 

[Oki05]

Actually I enjoyed reading your response it shed some light onto dubias for me. But you can actually buy a colony thats already pre made? So all I really have to do is supply food and water and clean it and I will begood to go then?

 

[midwestdragon]

It takes a roach 4-6 months to reach maturity. If you decide to buy an established colony I would say give it a month or two prior to getting a bearded dragon just so you are sure that the roaches are settled and you are able to maintain optimal breeding temps/conditions. If you are starting one with a handful of females and a few males and some mixed nymphs I would start a few months earlier to give some of the mixed sized nymphs time to mature. If you are getting a really young beardie that can pack away 100 a day that will be about 3000 a month until it gets older and that appetite slows down, you are going to need more than a handful of females to keep up. Personally I would rather have too many than not enough. I have never had a problem selling off the excess to keep my colony size from getting too big.

 

[luissandoval87]

Yes you can look on eBay I know a couple of people that have bought colonies there. I think everyonce in a while people will post something similar here on this and other reptile forums.

 

[Mistyck]

Yes you can buy colonies that are ready to start...

http://www.beardeddragon.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=182501

Lance sells them...

1. A colony= 4-5 females and same with males with extra added and 200-300 mixed sizes $25.00 Shipped
2. A starter colony= the same great roaches, 4-5 egg creates, enough water crystals to make a few gallons of water gel and one pound of the same AWESOME CHOW I have been selling on here shipped all
for $ 35.00. All YOU need to do is add the bin, two shallow lids for the food and a heat source.

 

[Oki05]

well right now im trying to convience my mom into letting me have a roach colony instead of a cricket colony but she keeps telling me she would rather have crickets then roaches because she hates roaches. But I am trying to tell her the positive things about have roaches instead of crickets but she wont get past the part that they are roaches that will be in her house. ON the plus side though I have finally convienced her into letting me have a beardie when I move in

 

[Soulwind]

Tell her this: (and keep calling them Dubia's rather than Roaches or call them Amazon Beetles -- a lot of folks just have issue with the Roach label)

[They aren't really beetles . . . beetles are in Order Coleoptera and Roaches are in Order Blattodea,
but it's the "Roach" label that makes most folk immediately slam the door shut and scream in shuddering revulsion,
without understanding that not all "Roaches" are "Cockroaches". Finding something different to call them can make a
world of difference and let some folks go in with a more open mind. But to be really honest, just stick with calling them "Dubias"]

- Crickets CAN and WILL live and breed at room temperatures (if any escape)
- Dubia's CANNOT live or breed at room temperature and humidity levels - so IF any escape they will just die.

[To be completely honest, Dubia's can live at some room temperatures, depending on where you live. They start dieing quickly at temps below 70 F,
(not instantly, but quickly) and at temps below 80 F they breed very slowly, if at all (90-95 F is recommended breeding temps).
This makes it HIGHLY unlikely that they could infest your house even if you do have an occasional escapee, unless you live in a hot and humid area
like southern florida (where they are banned by the way)]

- Crickets can climb and jump - escapes are easy and common
- Dubia's cannot climb, cannot jump, and are relatively slow moving - escapes are rare

[They can climb some, but are very poor climbers. The small nymphs especially can do some climbing on the silicone seams if you
are using an aquarium or on textured plastic tubs. A lid is always recommended! Putting a stripe of smooth packing tape around the
inner walls of a plastic tub will stop most nymphs, and a good lid should stop the rest. Large nymphs and adults are even worse climbers
than the small nymphs, but again a good lid will pretty much prevent escapes]

- Crickets make noise (everyone who's ever owned a home has had to deal with a chirping cricket that you just can't find -- now imagine several hundred of them)
- Dubia's don't make any noise

[It's been pointed out that they do make noise as they crawl around in the bin. True, but that's very minor (if a bit more creepy sounding)
than the racket several hundred 'singing' crickets can make. Some species of feeder roaches also hiss a little. I've never heard my Dubias do it, but
I won't rule out the possibility]

- Crickets (especially breeding bins of crickets) STINK
- Dubia's have a very mild odor and a lot of folks can't even smell that

- Crickets can and will bite and chew on your dragon
- Dubia's don't bite, period.

[Edited for clarity and complete honesty of my arguments to try and sway a reluctant parent/significant other about keeping Dubias over Crickets]

 

[Oki05]

Tell her this: (and keep calling them Dubia's rather than Roaches or call them Amazon Beetles -- a lot of folks just have issue with the Roach label)

[They aren't really beetles . . . beetles are in Order Coleoptera and Roaches are in Order Blattodea,
but it's the "Roach" label that makes most folk immediately slam the door shut and scream in shuddering revulsion,
without understanding that not all "Roaches" are "Cockroaches". Finding something different to call them can make a
world of difference and let some folks go in with a more open mind. But to be really honest, just stick with calling them "Dubias"]

- Crickets CAN and WILL live and breed at room temperatures (if any escape)
- Dubia's CANNOT live or breed at room temperature and humidity levels - so IF any escape they will just die.

[To be completely honest, Dubia's can live at some room temperatures, depending on where you live. They start dieing quickly at temps below 70 F,
(not instantly, but quickly) and at temps below 80 F they breed very slowly, if at all (90-95 F is recommended breeding temps).
This makes it HIGHLY unlikely that they could infest your house even if you do have an occasional escapee, unless you live in a hot and humid area
like southern florida (where they are banned by the way)]

- Crickets can climb and jump - escapes are easy and common
- Dubia's cannot climb, cannot jump, and are relatively slow moving - escapes are rare

[They can climb some, but are very poor climbers. The small nymphs especially can do some climbing on the silicone seams if you
are using an aquarium or on textured plastic tubs. A lid is always recommended! Putting a stripe of smooth packing tape around the
inner walls of a plastic tub will stop most nymphs, and a good lid should stop the rest. Large nymphs and adults are even worse climbers
than the small nymphs, but again a good lid will pretty much prevent escapes]

- Crickets make noise (everyone who's ever owned a home has had to deal with a chirping cricket that you just can't find -- now imagine several hundred of them)
- Dubia's don't make any noise

[It's been pointed out that they do make noise as they crawl around in the bin. True, but that's very minor (if a bit more creepy sounding)
than the racket several hundred 'singing' crickets can make. Some species of feeder roaches also hiss a little. I've never heard my Dubias do it, but
I won't rule out the possibility]

- Crickets (especially breeding bins of crickets) STINK
- Dubia's have a very mild odor and a lot of folks can't even smell that

- Crickets can and will bite and chew on your dragon
- Dubia's don't bite, period.

[Edited for clarity and complete honesty of my arguments to try and sway a reluctant parent/significant other about keeping Dubias over Crickets]

hm intresting I guess I do need to stop calling them roaches because thats whats turning her off are roaches. She hates crickets and roaches but she said she could live with the circkets. But I'll have to tell her another time I think I have bothered her enough about bearded dragons. Also I didn't know dubias were banned in Flordia intresting well I live in Georgia so I dont know if their banned here I'll have to check into it and see. Also whoever moved my topic to this part of the thread thanks I wasn't sure where to post it

 

[DracoChicko]

Really emphasize the noise and the stench. I have about 50 crickets in a feeder bin until i get my dubia colony up and running. The crickets smell worse than the dubias i have already. The egg cartons are COVERED with cricket poop while the dubias are still fairly new. and the NOISE. tell you what, get a small bin of adult crickets and leave them in the house. See how she tolerates that after a while lol. (AFTER you get your beardie of course, or else she'll probably just say no to the whole idea).

 

[Oki05]

no as far as getting a beardie she finally has been cool about that its just the crickets and dubias that are causing her to say no because she said she could put up with crickets but dubias no

 

[DracoChicko]

Seriously though, get like 20 large adult crickets and just leave them in the house. The noise will drive her crazy and maybe get like 6 or 7 dubia, put em in a cage and then compare the smell and look of the cage afterwards. I"m sure she'll see that the dubia are much cleaner than crickets. Maybe leave some printed out pages of crickets Vs. Dubia out with some people's comments as well. Maybe it might prompt her to look up more info on Dubia and become more comfortable with them?

 

[Soulwind]

Don't get yourself in trouble though

Printed information from several of the Crickets vs Dubia comparison sheets,
along with pictures of Dubia nymphs (which look more like roly-poly bugs than they do roaches)
and maybe some pictures of Cricket cages with all the dead crickets that always happens
will help at least to get her to think about it, and maybe look up more info on Dubias.

 

[DracoChicko]

I'm excited cuz i just got my starter colony from the roach guy. 250 mixed with two adult pair. I already had two more females prior to the kit. He also threw in 10 more large nymphs so I'm psyched. I have 6 males and and 4 females. I'm thinking of grabbingsome more females from my local pet shop though.

 

[Soulwind]

With that few females, it's going to be probably 6 months or more before you can really start feeding from the colony.

Although in a couple of months you can feed off some of the nymphs (especially the male nymphs).

You only want to keep about a 5 to 1 female to male ratio and can get rid of excess males. Try to let your female nymphs

grow up for several generations and you'll soon have a thriving colony.