Dubia = Cannibals?

[yoshimi]

I could not agree more with Jeff when concerning cannibalism. I could not have said it better. I posted to a thread that two member's were convinced that if you mixed Madagascar hissing roaches with dubia's that the hissers would eat the new born dubia's. It lead to a pretty heated argument which was pretty funny. What Jeff stated is exactly correct. If you don't have conditions right then and only then will you see cannibalism. If you don't have proper moisture levels even adult dubia's can become victims of cannibalism. Now it may seem like male dubia will chomp at each others wings and become to look very sickly. This is not cannibalism this is a result of to many males in one enclosure. These guys will fight like cats and dogs if they out number the females. That is why I always stress the importance of keep them at least 3 female to 1 male. But even with large amounts of males in one enclosure I have yet to see a death result from the male aggression. I also agree with Jeff on the over population part too I have witnessed very little cannibalize just because I have well over 10,000 in one bin. I just upgraded to 3 bins one for the breeders one for the mixed size nymphs and one for the new born nymphs. I have let my colony grow for about 15 months feeding only extra males to my frogs, toads and turtles. Now its looking like I will be need a 4th bin because I have so many breeders. I hand counted my female and male breeder bin last month just to have a better idea of how many males I needed and I counted 1025 females. I clean my bins every 2 weeks and every time I pull out 70-150 mature females of my mixed size bins and transfer them to my breeder. I would say I have roughly 1250 females with 300 males. And lately I have noticed that these these guys need more space then previously thought. I mean a lot more space. And I can see it through the numbers that I am breeding at, I average about 5000-7000 newborns a month were I should be seeing numbers closer to 18000. So what I am going to do is divide my breeder bin in half to two bins of the same size, give it two months and then I will let you all know the difference in reproduction. I will also need a 5th bin for my midsize bin because it is getting so cramped. My bin isn't small either it is 36 gal. And my two breeding bins are 25gal. So for all you who are starting out with your new colonies keep in mind they will do better with more space and this will help reduce that small amount of cannibalism. I will keep you all posted on my results as well as when I will do my give free give aways.

If you are reading this and wondering why I have so many roaches. Its because I plan on breeding cane toads and American bullfrogs and if I have thousands of little frogs hopping around before I can sell them I will need a lot to feed. But since I have been so successful breeding dubia's and I am enraged with the market price of them, I have choose to sell them as well.

Good info Jeff it is good to find a seasoned roach breeder in the community.

I agree about the retail price being nuts. Even factoring in their benefits, it's still crazy, and much more than red runners. I don't feel guilty about the price I'm selling them at, because of the number I have available. But when/if, I have more, they'll be cheaper to let go of. If you send 1st class and don't put rocks in the box, it's pretty cheap to ship them.
Also, I'm getting better at moving the babies. I have an 18-gallon for my breeders, and another like-sized (20 gallon i think) waiting in the wings, purchased on clearance after christmas. Moving the little ones makes it easier (for me) to keep track of how many new litters are showing up. Have some larger nymphs in breeder bin to grow because they're from an order I purchased and that's my idea of keeping the colony going. One died tho. I don't know why. Nobody ate it, it just keeled over.
And again, I agree that Jeff is awesome to have around. And you as well.