B. dubia are multiplying!

leoferus

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
9
Woo hoo! Thirteen days ago the wife and I purchased ten adult female and five adult male B. dubia specimens. We read all about breeding them and decided to go with the simplest method. We put them in a tupperware container, gave them water gel, food, and heat (85-90 degrees). Today, I counted about ten nymphs. All of the females except for two have a sac showing. I think a population explosion is about to happen.

If I understand correctly, I should expect the new nymphs to reach sexual maturity in four to six months. This means that in six months I will see an even larger yield. I'm exited. However, this does mean that I will have more dubia than I need. Therefore, I think that when the time comes I will be offering these for sale to the public.

Thoughts, comments, and suggestions are always welcome.

Ricardo
 

codykrr

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2008
Messages
3,112
You will be waiting a while to be selling them off. But congrats.

my colony exploded since the last sell off. (150 adult females) now I am back to around 2,500 or so...:(

A sell off is defiantly in the near future for me.
 

TalonAWD

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
1,139
My dubias breed and give off babies even in 65 degree temps. I use to provide heat but than high electric bills made me stop. Thinking they would not breed I started to feed off the females and was going to buy more. Than one day while feeding my large genic, I noticed that after being eaten alive, the female dubia had ejected her large long oomph (eggs).
Next thing I know I have hundreds of babies in the bin. So now after 6 months, and really cold in my garage (where I keep them) I still am getting babies.
Its rediculous{D
 

leoferus

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
9
My dubias breed and give off babies even in 65 degree temps. I use to provide heat but than high electric bills made me stop. Thinking they would not breed I started to feed off the females and was going to buy more. Than one day while feeding my large genic, I noticed that after being eaten alive, the female dubia had ejected her large long oomph (eggs).
Next thing I know I have hundreds of babies in the bin. So now after 6 months, and really cold in my garage (where I keep them) I still am getting babies.
Its rediculous{D
Oh man! That would be wonderful! I think I will keep the temperature high for now. Once I have enough numbers I will separate a bunch of adults to start another colony. This one, of course, without heat. It would be great to see this work. Thank you very much for the suggestion.

P.S. Here they are! Mom, dad, and the kids:

 

TalonAWD

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
1,139
My discovery was purely accidental. I never even thought they would mate and give off. But yeah. Right now I have ALOT of babies. Thing is I only have two sizes...Babies and adults lol. Not really ideal for all my T's that need bigger prey.:p
 

ArachnidJackson

Arachnopeon
Joined
Jul 3, 2010
Messages
41
Hmmmm

My dubias breed and give off babies even in 65 degree temps. So now after 6 months, and really cold in my garage (where I keep them) I still am getting babies.
Its rediculous{D
Very interesting. I wonder how difficult it would be to do this starting off a colony of 300?

The whole temperature drop ordeal...would definitely save quite a bit on energy bill.
 

codykrr

Arachnoking
Old Timer
Joined
Sep 22, 2008
Messages
3,112
Room temp is fine. Dubia will breed very well in comfortable living conditions.

I personally keep mine at 78F which is room temp in my spider room. when I am low on them I will add a heat lamp untill I see an increase in numbers.

I like to feed large adult males. so I try and keep a decent sized colony going at all times.

honestly though, it gets to a point where you have bred them so much that the colony can collapse on itself from inbreeding. so you really should try and add a 100 or so females every 1 to two years to keep yields really high. this is especially good advice when breeding to trade, sell or feed reptiles like bearded dragons and such.
 

TalonAWD

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Jul 28, 2007
Messages
1,139
Very interesting. I wonder how difficult it would be to do this starting off a colony of 300?

The whole temperature drop ordeal...would definitely save quite a bit on energy bill.
Like I said, I found out accidentaly. I'm not sure why they still breed. I'm sure the temps in the bin can reach up to 70F in the garage during the day but lately on average its around 65F. And I don't bring in a hot car as my garage right now as my Nova is completely dismantled (full restoration) so there is no heat source (And has been this way since March 2010).
Heres a pic I took today. Its a cold day and has been quite cool the last couple of weeks. you can see that the babies are quite small and recently born. You can see at the time I took this pic, the temp was pretty low but the humidity was up.
I'm to where I don't care about temps for them. I just make sure they have unlimited supply of food (dish is always full) and unlimited water supply (water crystals) I feed them Poultry feed exclusively (unmedicated).
You could always just try it.
(NOTE: For this picture I took the Flukers thermo-hygrometer and placed it in the bin for 15-20 minutes so it will read the temp/humidity just for this pic. I just moved one egg flat. Every egg flat is full of babies.)

 

leoferus

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
9
Thank you very much for all the feedback. I think that I will continue to apply heat until my colony is as large as I want it. From there, I will probably remove heat to slow it down... unless I get a lot of demand. In my area there aren't any pet stores selling roaches. I've seen a few people post on craigslist but no stores. There are plenty of people from DE, MD, and PA going to the reptile expos to buy dubia so maybe I'll be able to supply them locally. But either way is fine. I'm happy with not having to buy any more.

I appreciate the information you guys have provided. Keep it coming.
 

leoferus

Arachnopeon
Joined
Nov 1, 2010
Messages
9
We have crickets!

We have crickets! Yeah!

After a long wait, my wife's crickets have hatched. There are little white hatchlings everywhere!
 

tass

Arachnopeon
Joined
Dec 8, 2010
Messages
10
We have crickets! Yeah!

After a long wait, my wife's crickets have hatched. There are little white hatchlings everywhere!
haha yeah i have a couple thousand little crickets running around now after a month or so of buying them
 
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