Starting a dubia colony and Have a few questions

[thatGuysCool]

Ok so like the title says. I'm starting a colony and have a few questions.

first question. I got my hands on 10 adult females and 3 adult males. How long should it be before I have enough to start feeding some of them off?

Second question. I currently feed Spyro about 35 1/2 "- 1" a day. I have been reading that dubia's seem to gut load much better than crickets If I had 1/2" - 1" dubia's about how many should I be feeding a day? would it be the same as crickets or less?

 

[gilliesexotics]

Hi, it really depends on what your future plans are with the colony. 1. If your just wanting to give him snacks from the colony or even just feed a day or so a week from your colony. 2. If your wanting to feed primarily roaches. Roaches and crickets both are equal when it comes to gut loading.

Honestly you will be feeding the same number of similar size. You will hear on the internet the nutritional differences and you will even hear that the are 3 times a cricket. The simple truth is. Of weight, Example: 3 grams of roaches or 3 grams of crickets your dragon will gain weight that is comparable.

The true gains to having a roach colony is 1. very easy to breed. 2. live longer 3. you can produce a wide variety of sizes 4. cost 5. dont smell as bad as crickets.

 

[thatGuysCool]

My plans are to make them a staple. Tired of dealing with crickets. They really do smell horrible and I feel like they are harder to care for than my beardie lol.

The reason I asked about the amount is because a 1/2 roach definitely weighs more than a 1/2 cricket. If I read what you wrote above I should really go by weight and not quantity correct?

 

[Germ]

Use the old rule of thumb to determine how much to feed, "all they will eat in a 10(Fast Eater)-15(Slow Eater) minute period" per feeding, just like crickets. You will soon get a feeling for how much to feed. This method of gauging how much to feed, has proven itself since the start of the hobby, over 3 decades ago. A young growing BD should pretty much be given as much protein as it will take in, within 'common sense' limits, of course, like if it pukes, it quite likely had too much, too fast , but they generally know enough to stop when they've had enough, worms are a different story. How many they will eat, most assuredly depends on the size of the feeder & different BDs have different appetities.

 

[Augie]

On a side note, no matter your dragon's appetite, you won't be able to make due with the current size of your colony. It will take many months, if not about a year, to be self-sustaining before you can consider feeding AT ALL from your colony.

To give you some perspective, my Reggie is more insect-prone than veggie-prone. I started with a colony of about 45 females and 10 males. After six months, the colony still could not sustain her. I still feed a combo of crickets and adult male dubia to her. Granted, I also feed a pacman frog and leopard gecko, but even before that the colony was lacking.

I am thinking about separating my colony into three feeding bins, with two heated. The breeder colony and dragon/frog feeder colony will be heated. The third will be non-heated, with smaller dubia for my gecko.

I almost forgot... you will notice that you get like 80% more males than females. Once your dragon is big enough I'd recommend just feeding him the males. Bigger meals, and it gives your nymphs time to develop so you know what sex they are prior to feeding them off. You will soon learn that females will be those rare gems you want to hold on to!

 

[thatGuysCool]

After reading this I purchased another 30 adult females and 300 varied nymphs. I still have about 1000 crickets plus what ever I let breed before making the full move over to dubia's.

 

[Germ]

These are pics I took of my Discoid roaches a while back, to show how to sex them, but the method of sexing the larger nymphs by the under belly segments is the same for Dubia. As you likely already know, sexing Dubia adults is easy, females have pretty much non-existant wings compared to the full wings of the males, it's a little more difficult with the Discoids.

Good luck, it will be many months, as Augie mentioned before you have an established colony to readily feed out of.

If you are interested, clicking on my signature will lead you to my website, where there are several vids of my roach colonies feeding & being fed off.

 

[Augie]

After reading this I purchased another 30 adult females and 300 varied nymphs. I still have about 1000 crickets plus what ever I let breed before making the full move over to dubia's.

You're going to have a nice colony in 2-3 months tops, I would guess.

 

[Vnuk1]

Ordered my starter kit this weekend, egg crates, 18 gallon sterilite tub, 100 Dubia Roaches, 1lb water crystals and 1lb Roach Chow. Should be all together by Thursday. I'll be glad to never need those noisy, stinky crickets ever again.

Sent from my fingertips...

 

[thatGuysCool]

Ok so my 300 nymphs arrived today. I already like these things so much more than crickets. I don't have to worry about them jumping around . The adults will be in tomorrow and I cant wait to feed them some chow, oranges and let them get freaky lol I'm gonna keep you guys posted the colony. I also introduced spyro to about 4 today and he has no problem eating them . Video coming later....

 

[thatGuysCool]