Dubia Colony and crickets

[Quijibo]

Look at it this way, I have 10 leopard geckos, 12 crestedgeckos, one very large Vietnamese Centipede, emperor scorpion, mourning geckoand 3 adult size African bullfrogs which I refer to as my trash cans becausethey never stop eating. I have a whole lot of mouths to feed (the cresties onlyget roaches once a week) and I do it all off of my one colony of roaches. Ibought a starter colony of adult roaches, maybe 30 adult females and 15 malesat a reptile expo for $20. I let them breed full strength for 6 months withouttaking any out, now I will never have to buy crickets again. Buy a starter colony,let them breed for a couple months, I promise it will be worth it in the end. But leave them alone for a couple months to build up.

[poison]

I agree on the roaches. However you may find your self with more then you can handle. If that is the case then seperating the males and females or taking the heat off is a good idea. If your interested shoot me a pm and I'll tell you a great place to get a starter colony.

[Quijibo]

Hit meup also if you need any breeding advice or how to get started. This is just asmall fraction of my colony. I have about 1,500 give or take a couple hundred.

[demon amphibians]

This weekend I will be starting an experiment to better understand the dubia roaches need for protein. I have come across several threads of people either arguing about a high protein diet or simply asking questions about it and no one really had a solid answer not even myself. But since the last thread concerning it. I have done the math and I think I am on to the correct answer. Now I am going to set out to prove that a high protein diet is not necessary , That a dubia can grow and be healthy on nothing but a green leave and fruit diet at the same rate as a dubia eating chicken mash, dog and cat food. This experiment will be similar to the experiment I did to find whether oranges promoted breeding that is more fruitful. Which proved to be true? I am no scientist so I cannot provide microscopic analysis but I can provide some solid data.
Therefore, I will need help from you expert breeders. Before I start my experiment, I want your opinions on this question, “do dubia require a protein source outside of basic fruits and veggies or do they require larger amounts of protein which can be found in cat, dog, and fish food?”

[JeffreH]

Demon Amphibians - the effects of protein in the diet of the German cockroach, Blattella germanica, has been studied:

Effects of dietary Protein on reproduction:
Hamilton, R., Schal, C. (1988). Effects of Dietary Protein Levels on Reproduction and Food Consumption in the German Cockroach (Dictyoptera: Blattellidae).Annals of the Entomological Society of America; 81(6), 969-976.


You should be able to access the article via Google Scholar if you simply copy and paste this information into search. If you cannot access it, PM me and I will happily email you a PDF. I would use the information in this source as a basis for your experiment; check out what methods they used and the type of data collected. Take tedious notes, and control for as many variables as possible. I would wager the metabolic function of B. dubia is quite similar to B. germanica.

Excessive protein in the diet, particularly mammalian, can cause an increase in adult size but can reduce overall fitness of the individual. Excessive protein in cockroach diets result in hyperketosis, which is associated with uric acid formation. This can be BAD news for your pet; but shouldn't be a cause for concern unless you are feeding an significantly heavy, complex protein diet. Grains and salad items should be all that cockroaches need; most are very efficient at breaking down cellulose and can handle vegetation heavy diets and those that have a higher Carbon : Nitrogen ratio .

[demon amphibians]

Look at it this way, I have 10 leopard geckos, 12 crestedgeckos, one very large Vietnamese Centipede, emperor scorpion, mourning geckoand 3 adult size African bullfrogs which I refer to as my trash cans becausethey never stop eating. I have a whole lot of mouths to feed (the cresties onlyget roaches once a week) and I do it all off of my one colony of roaches. Ibought a starter colony of adult roaches, maybe 30 adult females and 15 malesat a reptile expo for $20. I let them breed full strength for 6 months withouttaking any out, now I will never have to buy crickets again. Buy a starter colony,let them breed for a couple months, I promise it will be worth it in the end. But leave them alone for a couple months to build up.

I agree that a starter colony is probably the best move for starting out because it comes with adults and mixed sizes. That way you will have breeding from the get go and then others at many different ages to keep a healthy colony with continuous new breeders. Patents is the key to these guys. It is always recomened to give your colony a few months to establish its self, no matter how many you start with.