Are Dubia right for scorpions?

[Thane1616]

Hello everyone! I recently got back into scorpion keeping and while doing my research on food options I found alot of people/forums talking about Dubia roaches being the perfect feeder so I bought a small colony which is doing well. But, I also see alot of people say they do not trigger a good food/prey response and scorpions mostly wont eat them because of size. Do more experienced keepers out there have issues feeding your scorpions Dubia? If not, do you do anything special such as crushing the head, leaving them on their backs, etc?

I dont mind keeping the Dubia as a side hustle and starting a Turkestan roach colony if the Dubia are not right for scorpions. I mostly just hate dealing with crickets, dont want to pay for them or breed them and want another option.

 

[The insect dude101]

Mealworms are very cheap 5000 is close to 30$ With roaches it depends on size and species

 

[Thane1616]

Mealworms are very cheap 5000 is close to 30$ With roaches it depends on size and species

Yeah the cost of Dubia is why I started a colony, never fed mealworms to any scorpion but know people do, didnt know they were so cheap.

 

[Desert scorps]

i personally hate dubias just for the fact that they always seem to play dead or bury themselves into the substrate making it hard for the scorpions to find them, but honestly other than that they’re perfectly fine as feeders. of course there’s ways around that, but i just found it kind of annoying and turned to red runners instead since they don’t burrow down or play dead

 

[YungRasputin]

dubias are good, so are crickets and worms and so on - variety is the best tbh (and closer to nature since scorpions don’t limit themselves to 1 type of prey and are opportunistic hunters)

 

[Joey Spijkers]

My scorpions mainly get dubias. I don’t like mealworms, only use them once in a while, same with crickets. Redrunner/turkistan roaches are great for their activity, but I have to have dubias anyway for my reptiles and I don’t want to have 2 large breeding tubs, so the redrunners I just buy about a hundred at a time, and after they’re gone, I’m back to dubias.
Honestly, my more aggressive species will react the same to dubias as they will to redrunners. With some of the shyer species, I leave them in the enclosure a few days and the burying can be annoying, but they will eventually find the dubia usually. Good thing with dubias (as well as redrunners) is they won’t try to nibble on the scorpions, so I’ve never had problems with leaving them in. With crickets, I really want to remove them the next day.

 

[Dry Desert]

Yeah the cost of Dubia is why I started a colony, never fed mealworms to any scorpion but know people do, didnt know they were so cheap.

As you probably know, scorpions "aren't pounce on the prey " creatures similar to T's they just bide their time, they will grab if startled, or really hungry, normally they will eat later on. For larger scorpions I feed crushed mario worms - make sure you crush a good 1/3 down from the head, otherwise they seem to recover and burrow. Dubai's are fine as a feeder, again, crushed to prevent burrowing. I personally use Red Runners, more active, don't burrow at all - a good alternative to Dubai's. If I purchase new additions, scorpions, and not sure if they have eaten, leave a couple of days and feed crushed runner, so the scorpion is not stressed by feeders running around, seems to work.

 

[viper69]

Mine get steak from Morton’s

 

[Thane1616]

I wasnt really asking whats the best food more like will I have a problem getting them eat Dubia roaches since I see so many people complain about the poor eating response, burrowing, etc. I have been feeding them head crushed crickets for the past 3 weeks but when I tried it with a few dubia they had no interest. Thanks for the info though.

 

[Ferrachi]

My scorpions have no issues with dubia roaches, they seem to like them. Actually, they seem to like anything that moves...

 

[coolnweird]

The key with dubia is crushing their heads! Gross, but it zombifies them and instead of digging or playing dead, they just stumble around waiting to be eaten

 

[Thane1616]

The key with dubia is crushing their heads! Gross, but it zombifies them and instead of digging or playing dead, they just stumble around waiting to be eaten

yeah I plan on trying that once my colony is bigger, I only have about 100 individuals and over half are babies.

 

[Thane1616]

as an update I caught my juvenile androctonus australis out of its hide having a stroll and tried to feed it a small dubia that was playing dead. The scorpion was not fooled. It picked the roach up, stung it, carried it around for a few minutes then ate it. Figured I could try one more time for science