Advice on starting a small dubia colony

[gabrieldezzi]

Hey everyone. I use dubia roaches for my bearded dragon and on occasion for my T's. Does anyone have any tips for starting a small colony? I don't want too many that I don't know what to do with etc., but still enough to have a decent supply where I don't constantly have to buy some. I am 17 and still live with my parents, so I want to minimize things like smell/noise if I can. Thanks!

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

How many of what size roaches does one bearded dragon eat a month ?
I have a thread on caring for them and there are various others online , I’m still new to what the best heatmats are others can chime in.

 

[DomGom TheFather]

Plastic bin with egg crate harborage, bare floor and screen lid. Don't look back.

 

[NMTs]

I started a colony with 12 immature "large" dubia roaches around 3 years ago. Of those 12, in about 3 months around 4 matured as males, 2 died, and 6 were mature females. I kept them in a rubbermaid tub with egg crates, a dish for dry food (oats), a dish for wet food (veggie table scraps), and a heat mat on the side. I now have about 1000 dubia roaches of various sizes, and I feed them to my box turtles (50+) all spring/summer/fall and to my T's (100+) year round. I now have 3 tubs full of dubia roaches. This spring I'm going to freeze a batch of them and put them out in the bird feeders to see if the birds like them. They multiply exponentially, although you can slow breeding by cooling them down. Starting a breeding colony to feed 1 bearded dragon and a handful of T's is overkill, IMO. If my critter collection were small, I would just stick to buying feeders as needed, or perhaps making a small mealworm breeding setup instead. If you are good about keeping the bins clean, though, the roaches don't really stink.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

I started a colony with 12 immature "large" dubia roaches around 3 years ago. Of those 12, in about 3 months around 4 matured as males, 2 died, and 6 were mature females. I kept them in a rubbermaid tub with egg crates, a dish for dry food (oats), a dish for wet food (veggie table scraps), and a heat mat on the side. I now have about 1000 dubia roaches of various sizes, and I feed them to my box turtles (50+) all spring/summer/fall and to my T's (100+) year round. I now have 3 tubs full of dubia roaches. This spring I'm going to freeze a batch of them and put them out in the bird feeders to see if the birds like them. They multiply exponentially, although you can slow breeding by cooling them down. Starting a breeding colony to feed 1 bearded dragon and a handful of T's is overkill, IMO. If my critter collection were small, I would just stick to buying feeders as needed, or perhaps making a small mealworm breeding setup instead. If you are good about keeping the bins clean, though, the roaches don't really stink.

Woah how long did that take ? Only time I ever killed any on purpose was phorid fly invasion I lost a few 100. It worked to kill the flies they kept hatching from inside my dubia . But the colony died off I had to buy a new one last year.
I still don’t even have anywhere close to as many as I used to have.

 

[NMTs]

Woah how long did that take ? Only time I ever killed any on purpose was phorid fly invasion I lost a few 100. It worked to kill the flies they kept hatching from inside my dubia . But the colony died off I had to buy a new one last year.
I still don’t even have anywhere close to as many as I used to have.

I've been running it at these levels for over a year, so I suppose it's taken about 2 years for it to get this size? I try to cull males, but it seems like for every one I pull, 2 more pop up the next day, lol. It's also pretty warm here for 9 or 10 months of the year, and not humid at all, so we don't have issues with stuff like phorid flies and there's not a significant cooling period to really slow them down. My turtles do brumate, though, so there's about 4 months of the year when my main consumers of the roaches are off duty...

 

[444 critters]

Oatmeal substrate (helps with smell, extra food, and somewhere for the babies to hide) egg cartons for housing, proper heating (I use a heat mat for plant seeds) set to 93°, water crystals for water/place for them to molt, and I use oranges as a staple food along with occasional bananas, and shaved carrots.. don't put more food then they will eat in 2 days to avoid mold.

I started with 400 a a couple years ago. I am around 8-10k roaches now. Heat will help them reproduce the most. Also you want a good ratio of 4-6 females to 1 male... it will explode in no time.

I breed bearded dragons, and I didn't touch my colony for 1 year. Now I feed as much as I want. Goodluck

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Oatmeal substrate (helps with smell, extra food, and somewhere for the babies to hide) egg cartons for housing, proper heating (I use a heat mat for plant seeds) set to 93°, water crystals for water/place for them to molt, and I use oranges as a staple food along with occasional bananas, and shaved carrots.. don't put more food then they will eat in 2 days to avoid mold.

I started with 400 a a couple years ago. I am around 8-10k roaches now. Heat will help them reproduce the most. Also you want a good ratio of 4-6 females to 1 male... it will explode in no time.

I breed bearded dragons, and I didn't touch my colony for 1 year. Now I feed as much as I want. Goodluck

Wow I’ve never had or heard of growth that significant. It seems everywhere I’ve ordered roaches from I either received 30-60% less then advertised. When I got orange head roaches half of them were DOA. I never got a response or refund.. 🫤

 

[444 critters]

Wow I’ve never had or heard of growth that significant. It seems everywhere I’ve ordered roaches from I either received 30-60% less then advertised. When I got orange head roaches half of them were DOA. I never got a response or refund.. 🫤

Well ive tried explaining all this in that other thread, how important everything was, I sent pictures and everything of my setup.

 

[444 critters]

Wow I’ve never had or heard of growth that significant. It seems everywhere I’ve ordered roaches from I either received 30-60% less then advertised. When I got orange head roaches half of them were DOA. I never got a response or refund.. 🫤

Dubia lay apprx. 25 babies every 65 days. I had roughly 320 females and 80 males .. my colonies are roughly 2.5 years old.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Well ive tried explaining all this in that other thread, how important everything was, I sent pictures and everything of my setup.

Yeah I’m caring for them that way except heatmat on the side . I’ll have to try that brand you suggested if mine breaks .
I’ve had great success so far, just not in the thousands like my colony 7 years ago .
I was just meaning for 100 I gotta order 2-300. Places lie about quantity of roaches sold .

 

[444 critters]

Yeah I’m caring for them that way except heatmat on the side . I’ll have to try that brand you suggested if mine breaks .
I’ve had great success so far, just not in the thousands like my colony 7 years ago .
I was just meaning for 100 I gotta order 2-300. Places lie about quantity of roaches sold .

I was lucky to find a local who had a massive colony. I paid the price in the beginning to get the female to male ratio I was looking for. Because my bearded dragons eat so many, I needed a solid foundation. I'm literally feeding 20+ adult/large dubia a day to my dragons. And 45+ nymphs a day to each baby. I blow through roaches.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

I was lucky to find a local who had a massive colony. I paid the price in the beginning to get the female to male ratio I was looking for. Because my bearded dragons eat so many, I needed a solid foundation. I'm literally feeding 20+ adult/large dubia a day to my dragons. And 45+ nymphs a day to each baby. I blow through roaches.

nice find ! Online is rough.
Yeah I wondered how anyone could breed enough roaches to feed those dragons. Besides having to buy thousands and thousands of them .

 

[l4nsky]

I'm literally feeding 20+ adult/large dubia a day to my dragons. And 45+ nymphs a day to each baby. I blow through roaches.

I've done the math and if I'm just using crickets for my current broodstock of 145 tarantulas, I would need about 28 dozen a week to feed everyone once. At $0.15 ea, that's $50.40 a week in crickets, or $2,620.80 yearly. This cost is an absolute minimum figure as it DOES NOT include gas to the pet shop everyday, a decretion figure should I choose to get a weeks worth at a time (accounting for die off due to short lifespans), or a minimum of 2 * (sling count) extra crickets for every eggsack produced as I feed twice to get them well started before shipping. With all that added up, my feeder bill would easily be over $3,000.

My roach food bill for a massive dubia and massive lat colony? $80 every 3 months ($320 annually) for 20 pounds of a high quality dry food and that's it.

Literally pennies on the dollar for better quality feeders.

 

[444 critters]

I've done the math and if I'm just using crickets for my current broodstock of 145 tarantulas, I would need about 28 dozen a week to feed everyone once. At $0.15 ea, that's $50.40 a week in crickets, or $2,620.80 yearly. This cost is an absolute minimum figure as it DOES NOT include gas to the pet shop everyday, a decretion figure should I choose to get a weeks worth at a time (accounting for die off due to short lifespans), or a minimum of 2 * (sling count) extra crickets for every eggsack produced as I feed twice to get them well started before shipping. With all that added up, my feeder bill would easily be over $3,000.

My roach food bill for a massive dubia and massive lat colony? $80 every 3 months ($320 annually) for 20 pounds of a high quality dry food and that's it.

Literally pennies on the dollar for better quality feeders.

Red runners are a great source aswell. I have a red runner colony for my tarantulas, they are soft bodied, the babies are extremely small (perfect fornthe small slings), and they breed fast! Plus they don't bury themselves when they are dropped into a tarantulas enclosure, they run until they are eaten, drowned in the water dish, or removed. plus they don't really need much to care for them, nor do they need the extra heat, they do great at room temperature.