Blaptica dubia

[Herp13]

I really want to try these cockroaches, but i want some personal experiances, pictures, and general care and maitanence ideas from the average hobbiest before i go ahead and start a colony

 

[james]

dubia

A simple rubbermaid with heat and egg crates. I also now use vermiculite as a substrate, but you can use so many things or even nothing. They are very easy to keep, handle, and breed. Simple foods like fish flakes, cat or dog food, apples, carrots are all food items.
James
www.blaberus.com

 

[Herp13]

Oh, hey, i tried calling you a bunch of times but i think somethings wrong with your phone. You have previously told me about vermiculite over the phone, and i was wondering, is there anyway to buy it for cheaper, a 4 quart bag is like $6. Oh, do you have any picks?

 

[Herp13]

I meant do you have any pics Does anyone else keep them?

 

[Kevin_Davies]

I meant do you have any pics Does anyone else keep them?

I keep them, they are easy to keep, heres some pics of my ones.

 

[Herp13]

Oh, nice looking specimens I definetly want some, very nice looking cockroach.

 

[Herp13]

If i get say, 10-20 how fast can i expect breeding results?

 

[Tarantulasse]

EEK! I'd say expect EXTREMELY slow results if you get only 20. My boyfriend and I did that, and.....well we had like maybe 11 babies after 3-4 months, it was ridiculous...it's way better to spend the money and save the time...don't bother being stingy like we were at first. One reason is from what I've read about them, they breed better when they are in larger colonies as opposed to smaller ones.

I bit the bullet and got 75 adults ( I think I ordered a mixed batch but they sent me virtually all adults which was awesome) from www.blapticadubia.com, they have damn good prices for these fellas actually, and now I'm seeing great results.....though since we have 40 tarantulas, we are being patient and letting them breed away so we won't thin the colony out too bad when we start mainly feeding from them. I can't tell you how many I have but with all the babies I'd say hundreds easily....This is after maybe about 4-5 months. Now we are just waiting for them to grow into a nice variety of sizes so we have a good amount of different sizes for our variety of tarantuals... the babies are perfect for baby spiders and the bigger ones are greats for the giants...Not too mention they are good feeders for some types of lizards if you are into reptiles too.

I'd say even though they are pricey, get a bunch, because your colony will be ready to start feeding all the faster and you won't regret it.

These guys don't smell, don't make noise (aside from a wee-bit of skittering around), they don't climb glass and they don't fly despite the males wings...they are so easy to take care of. The noise thing is especially important when you live in a small place like me and share a room with your tarantulas......no more crickets that havn't been eatin yet chirping away in the middle of the night to there long lost loved whatever.

crickets, smell bad, make so much noise they drive you nuts (especially if they are close by and you need to sleep), and the crickets die so quickly and smell even worse, on top of that they jump around and escape like mad men.

With this heat wave I havn't had to use a heating pad at all with the roaches and they are happy as can be.

I feed them cereal which doesn't get moldy so I don't have to worry about cleaning, and I eat an apple almost everyday and throw in the left over apple core which they love...and I throw away the old apple core every time I put in a new one so I don't have to worry about mold or fruit flies. They need fruit somewhat regularly (once a week at least I'd say), but I give them my left overs cause it's too expensive to buy fruit for roaches LOL!! I don't do cat or dog food, cause they didn't seem to eat it much....and so far from the diet I've given them I havn't noticed any deaths. If any are dying, it's so little I don't even notice.

The only down-side is......they are almost too cute to feed....hahahahha here's some pics of my cuties

 

[Herp13]

Oh, well, thats to bad, i only have 2 horned frogs to feed, maybe some new carnivorous inverts coming soon, but no big collection or anything, so maybe i'll let the colony grow from around 10-20 adults, i don't need a huge amount to feed my frogs

 

[Tarantulasse]

Ah I see makes sense, but even still the colony will grow very slow from 10-20.

 

[Stylopidae]

With my next paycheck, I'm going to be getting lobster roaches along with my centipedes

 

[Pyst]

There's alot of information about B.dubia on the boards. Might I suggest trying the "Search" function.

With my next paycheck, I'm going to be getting lobster roaches along with my centipedes

And this relates to this thread how exactly ?


-Mike

 

[Herp13]

I don't care if it's a little unrelated, i mean, i was talking about a specific roach and starting a colony, but he is also talking about starting a roach colony. By the way Cheshire, i was thinking about doing lobsters, but everything i've heard about them is bad, they climb up glass, they go into a cage and find some tiny space to hide and then never get eaten(pregnant females may even give birth in your creatures tank!), or they burrow away from the creature never allowing it time to catch and eat the roach. They are also one of those roaches that can infest your house very easily if a few escape. May i suggest you try another roach? If you are looking for something to feed say an arboreal spider, try Panchlora nivea (Green bannana roach) that is excellent at flight, or if you want something small like lobsters, but can't climb, try Blatta lateralis(the turkistan roach). But if you want an overall good feeder try either Blaptica dubia, Eublaberus posticus, or Blaberus discoidalis. Another good species is Blaberus fusca(the dwarf cave roach).

 

[Stylopidae]

I don't care if it's a little unrelated, i mean, i was talking about a specific roach and starting a colony, but she is also talking about starting a roach colony. By the way Cheshire, i was thinking about doing lobsters, but everything i've heard about them is bad, they climb up glass, they go into a cage and find some tiny space to hide and then never get eaten(pregnant females may even give birth in your creatures tank!), or they burrow away from the creature never allowing it time to catch and eat the roach. They are also one of those roaches that can infest your house very easily if a few escape. May i suggest you try another roach? If you are looking for something to feed say an arboreal spider, try Panchlora nivea (Green bannana roach) that is excellent at flight, or if you want something small like lobsters, but can't climb, try Blatta lateralis(the turkistan roach). But if you want an overall good feeder try either Blaptica dubia, Eublaberus posticus, or Blaberus discoidalis. Another good species is Blaberus fusca(the dwarf cave roach).

And this relates to this thread how exactly ?

Comparison from personal experience

 

[Herp13]

Did i say something wrong? I don't get it Cheshire. Oh, i'm sorry for saying she Cheshire, whenever i see your avatar i just wrongly assume

 

[Stylopidae]

Did i say something wrong? I don't get it Cheshire. Oh, i'm sorry for saying she Cheshire, whenever i see your avatar i just wrongly assume

No, no, no...I was responding to Pyst's post. I've been torn between dubia and lobsters for awhile because of quality/price and I wanted somebody to compare the two. I think I'll just wait a little bit longer and get the dubia when I can afford them.

 

[Herp13]

Go to bugchick.com, so far she has dubia's at the best price i've seen, 50 cents a piece. You can always get a small colony of 20 going for like $10 bucks, not to bad. And if you want to pich in some extra cash you can get 40 of them for $20, thats not to bad either. Or, you can get an even faster breeder, Eublaberus posticus for 25 cents a piece, and they yield results even faster than dubia's.

 

[Code Monkey]

You know, there's this thing called the search function....

Here's some threads, including a fully highlighted "article" in the articles forum:

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=463
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=21978
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=22193

Here's my current colony:

And never discount the value of child labor for colony maintenance:

 

[Herp13]

Kool Are you guys like sifting through to get all the babies? And what is that material for the roach "motel"?

 

[Code Monkey]

Kool Are you guys like sifting through to get all the babies?

Yep. I keep my colonies dry with no substrate. The cork slats are oriented vertically so all the frass drops to the bottom. Four times a year or so I clean it all out and use the frass for fertiliser in the flowers and garden.