Dubia roach question

[timscrape]

I am going to be ordering dubia roaches online soon. We have been feeding crickets to our pacman but don't like the smell of housing them. We have a large jar of the Fluker's orange cubes for crickets. Here is my question. Can we feed the dubias with the orange cubes, so we dont waste them, or will they not work for dubias? I don't see a reason why they wouldn't work but I'm no expert.

Thanks for the info.

[badkelpie]

You can use them for the roaches.

[yoshimi]

same boat, i fed off the last of my crickets and still had a 3/4 full jar of orange cricket cubes. don't throw it out. the baby roaches seem to like it, about as much as the crickets did, but i haven't tried it with the adults. the babies are my feeders, and i even put 1 or 2 cubes in the center of food bowl. so they can snack before they get eaten.

[unkempt1]

Yea you can use them, but mine will only eat them if there is nothing else in the bin.

[timscrape]

Good. Thanks for the info. That makes it a little easier for me to get the roaches instead of the crickets. Are the dubias easy to culture and keep a colony? I didn't have much luck with culturing the crickets.

[demon amphibians]

You should use the cubes for gut loading purposes to maximize the vitamin intake. The roaches will eat it if it is there only option, And yes roaches are super easy to culture just make sure you read over a care sheet so you know what temps to use and how to house them. You will be very satisfied with Dubia roaches. They beat out the crickets hands down.

[yoshimi]

so true that they beat crickets. my crickets never stank but with all the hopping and dying it was a pain. i keep the baby dubia on a shelf and i would guess it's under 68 degrees, so they don't grow much. i have 34 adults and nearly adults in a bin with heat; got it earlier this month, so no babies for another few weeks. they're molting very well, no deaths. oh, one death when i 1st got them. i won it from my feeder supplier, otherwise i wouldn't have them. it's very easy to keep them simply as feeders. $2 bin from target with holes poked through the lid, some small egg crates, food, and that's all they really need. trying to breed them requires a bit more attention.

[Heatheranne]

Yep, you can use them. Little trick for you...squeeze fresh oranges over them and they'll dig right in .

[timscrape]

Wow! Lots of good info. Thank you guys a lot. It sounds like they are easier to take care of than I thought. I will start another post later with questions on culturing dubias.

[demon amphibians]

Yep, you can use them. Little trick for you...squeeze fresh oranges over them and they'll dig right in .

I would like to apologies i totally miss read your comment. fresh oranges squeezed over the cubes would do just nice

[Heatheranne]

They are very easy .

[Heatheranne]

Yep, you can use them. Little trick for you...squeeze fresh oranges over them and they'll dig right in .

Lol! I meant squeeze the juice over the orange cubes .

[deranged chipmunk]

Heather, heather, heather......you losing your mind as of late? Lol

[timscrape]

Wow! Lots of good info. I joined this forum to help my son keep his pacman alive. I didn't realize how helpful it would be. One more quick question. How big of a colony would you suggest for one pacman?

[demon amphibians]

Wow! Lots of good info. I joined this forum to help my son keep his pacman alive. I didn't realize how helpful it would be. One more quick question. How big of a colony would you suggest for one pacman?

200-400 would probably be just right. But like i always say the more the better they can only reproduce so fast and if you find that you have to many, you can slow them down or even stop them from breeding by lowering the temperature. Always hold on to some nymphs for future breeders.

[unkempt1]

Wow! Lots of good info. I joined this forum to help my son keep his pacman alive. I didn't realize how helpful it would be. One more quick question. How big of a colony would you suggest for one pacman?

Female dubia produce about 20-30 babies per birth, and if conditions are right can produce young once per month. My pacman will on average eat about 3-6 medium-sized roaches every 2-3 days. That's anywhere from 20-90 roaches a month, and he's about six months old.

You can definitely get 200-400 medium roaches, but depending on his appetite he may go through them all prior to any reaching adulthood. Plus you can't control how many are males or female. You will be the best judge of his appetite. I'd recommend getting maybe 10-20 females, 5 or so males, and about 200 or so mixed sizes. Then you can feed off your colony while they build up. The nymphs that are born will be given time to grow; you can pretty much guarantee a pacman will ignore or not be able to snatch up the smaller nymphs. You will also noticed the females don't always follow the 30 day production rule you try to set for them.