Dubia questions

[Stacy737]

Hello, I'm going to start a dubia roach colony here, I've read the male to female ratio is 1:4 or even 1:7 with a google search. My ebay bid these guys are coming from is 20 females, 10 males.....so

I've never fed my juvenile T's an adult dubia (to thin the male population if needed), they've all been nymphs about .5" and under, should I be concerned about the hard exoskeleton breaking a fang?

Also, do female dubias damage each other when the population ratio is out of balance? I heard that from youtube

Thanks, have a good day

 

[Liquifin]

As long as the ratio of males is not too high, then it will be fine with the ratio of 1:4 or however it suits you.

I've never fed my juvenile T's an adult dubia (to thin the male population if needed), they've all been nymphs about .5" and under, should I be concerned about the hard exoskeleton breaking a fang?

I wouldn't really about fangs breaking from dubias, especially if we're talking about feeding away adult male dubias. Tarantula fangs are sharper and harder than what most people think in terms of fangs.

Also, do female dubias damage each other when the population ratio is out of balance? I heard that from youtube

That has never happened in my experience. Usually it's the males that damage and kill each other over females. Females attacking each other is quite a weird claim and one I haven't seen yet within my dubia colony. So I wouldn't worry about it to be fair.

 

[DomGom TheFather]

Listen to this guy.
1:4 is fine. Don't let it get much higher or the males will look like their wings went through a paper shredder. Reproduction also drops significantly if there are too many boys around.

They wont break a T's jaw.
Neither will hissers for that matter.

 

[Thane1616]

Any ratio over 1:3 is good but anything past 1:8 and I would suspect all the females are not being bred as frequently as you may want. I started with 20 females and 6 males so about 1:3 and have about 200 babies after starting my colony on June 20th. The females are not territorial or aggressive towards each other but the males are and will eat the newborns people say although I have not witnessed it yet. As for breaking teeth, thats not an issue because dubia are surprisingly soft for being an "armored" bug. They feel like the skin of an apple I guess...its hard to describe. Definitely not hard like a plastic credit card or anything like that.

Keep in mind if you want the colony to be your staple feeder then you should wait 3-6 months if you only start with 30 adults. They reproduce about every 60 days and have about 20-30 nymphs each time. Lastly, they take about 6 months to mature from newborns to adults.