Dubia Colony and crickets

[Benjamin Z]

Guys I am going to crazy! right now I have 6 frogs and 1 leopard gecko, so you guys must realize how much they would eat every day. So who have better ideas to feed those eat machine? dubia colony or crickets?

And If I buy dubia colony, which size colony is good for me?


Sorry for my lots of questions, I realllly need your help.

[badkelpie]

Dubia! So much easier to breed than crickets. Each female has about 20 - 30 babies a month, so figure out how many yours eat in a month, and get a few extra. A colony of 20 or so females and 5 or so males is probably more than enough.

[Benjamin Z]

Dubia! So much easier to breed than crickets. Each female has about 20 - 30 babies a month, so figure out how many yours eat in a month, and get a few extra. A colony of 20 or so females and 5 or so males is probably more than enough.

Thanks. I searched website and found there are two choices suited for me. one is 100 Mixed Sex Dubia Roaches. Sizes range from 1/4 to 3/4 inch(I might need to wait until they become adults then they begin to breed). Another choice is directly to buy 10 adults male and 20 adults females (this method is a little bit expensive than last one, but the good news is I can start my colony anytime). Do you think which method is better? Tks

[unkempt1]

Sorry to butt in, but take the adult option. If you get mixed nymphs you won't have any control of your male/female ratio. You will have to wait to find out, and then it would be disappointing if you ended up with way to many males. It's possible, because males are more common.

[Benjamin Z]

Sorry to butt in, but take the adult option. If you get mixed nymphs you won't have any control of your male/female ratio. You will have to wait to find out, and then it would be disappointing if you ended up with way to many males. It's possible, because males are more common.

Thanks ~ ~!

[demon amphibians]

Sorry to butt in, but take the adult option. If you get mixed nymphs you won't have any control of your male/female ratio. You will have to wait to find out, and then it would be disappointing if you ended up with way to many males. It's possible, because males are more common.

This is very true but a few little issues come with this. Normally when you buy adults they are usually old breeders and much more expensive. Even if you want to save the extra buck and go with the mixed lot yes you will have to wait for them to mature and have more males then females but at least you will have 18-20 months of breeding from the females. I think if you add the pennies it is a money saver and in the long run a time saver. It may feel like you are getting somewhere if you get adults from the get go but really the disadvantages out weigh the advantages. For the same amount of money as a lot of adults you could get 5 times as many nymphs. Just a few months of waitng and your colony will be much larger then if you would have bought adults. I have done both methods and that is what lead me to this conclusion..

[MatthewM1]

I started with a bunch of mixed small nymphs a couple months ago, I just had my first male hit adult size no adult females went but I have a bunch of both nearing adulthood within the next 2 months or so I'll probably have about 50+ adults producing and still have a bunch of mid size nymphs that will be adults by the time that those start to slow down. If you just start with adults they may start producing quicker but it will take a lot longer before your next generation on breeders is mature

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[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.

[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.

[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 .

[JMDaniels]

Guys I am going to crazy! right now I have 6 frogs and 1 leopard gecko, so you guys must realize how much they would eat every day. So who have better ideas to feed those eat machine? dubia colony or crickets?

And If I buy dubia colony, which size colony is good for me?


Sorry for my lots of questions, I realllly need your help.

Well I hate roaches. I just cant stand the creepy crawliness. But you dont seem to mind, so then go with them. They cant jump like crickets so they are easier to manage in that sense. For me though, I'll stick with crickets. Also, crickets breed a lot faster than dubia, which could be good or bad.

[demon amphibians]

Well I hate roaches. I just cant stand the creepy crawliness. But you dont seem to mind, so then go with them. They cant jump like crickets so they are easier to manage in that sense. For me though, I'll stick with crickets. Also, crickets breed a lot faster than dubia, which could be good or bad.

Roaches are creepy crawly and trust me it took me a long time to get used to them. I really had a bad impression of roaches to begin with. I am not afraid of bugs that are creepy crawlies mind you. I will pick up a black widow bare handed as long as i have control over it i have no fear. But roaches were another story. But since about a year and a half ago i got used to handling captive roaches wild house roaches still drive me nuts.

crickets are far more inferior then roaches when it comes to breeding and feeding. Here are the reasons.
1 crickets will escape i don't care how you slice it whether they escape while feeding or they climb out of their housing, If you use crickets you will find them around your house and they can live in your house just fine as well/ Dubia roaches are slow and can't climb smooth sides. i have between 25,000-30,000 and i can count the escapes while feeding on one hand. absolutely none have gotten out of there bins, and even if they did escape, they can't survive long unless you keep your house humid and over 80 degrees. The only place they can live in the united states is Florida. And even then they will not invade your house.
2. 12 crickets will stink up an entire room/roaches have almost no smell. I do feed crickets to my toads just for variety reasons and 1 dozen crickets stink more then my entire roach colonies.
3. crickets do breed faster and mature faster that is true but a cricket can berth 100 eggs in a life time/ a dubia roach can berth 630-700+ in a life time.
4. Roaches are by far hardier then crickets B dubia females can live between 18-24 months. Crickets i give them 8 weeks at best depending on the breed.
5 dubia are larger but if you take a cricket and a dubia of the same size the dubia still has 12X the nutritional value of a cricket.
6. Like i said above b dubia are much larger then cricket so they are more appropriate for a frog such as a pixie. when i had to baby pixies i went through 1,000 crickets in 2 1/2 weeks (you pixie owners know what i am talking about). and they were just babies imagine how many a pixie of 8 inches in length can eat if it would even waste its time with them.
7. Crickets die off almost as fast as you can feed them. Dubia are a sterdy bug i have about 20 deaths at best a month and well you already know how many i have. when i first started my colony with 1,000 i had 1 death a month sometimes none.
8. crickets cannibalzie quite often/ B dubia are almost none existant if you have the proper moister levels.
9. And finaly most species of lizards and frogs prefer B dubia over crickets.

I can go on and on with this list all day long. I think many will agree that roaches in genreal are the Best feeder insects out there. Now nightcrawlers may be more nutritional i wont argue that but they breed very very slow and grow just as slow.