roach inventory?

[Franklin]

anyone with feeder colonys of roaches, please offer your input.

I got a colony of dubia a few weeks ago, and wanted to see how well of my colony is.

right now i have about 33 adult male 67 adult female 275-300 mixed size that are not mature.

here are pictures of them sorted out.

so is 1 : 3 : 8 a good ratio for AM: AF: (not adults)

 

[Matt K]

You are WAY overthinking this....

Keep them all together, feed/water regularly until your container is full of them. That's all. Easier than growing a house plant...

 

[Franklin]

You are WAY overthinking this....

Keep them all together, feed/water regularly until your container is full of them. That's all. Easier than growing a house plant...

Am I? I just got them and dont know how much I'm feeding off, i though i would get a count, compared when i first got them. I think that is completely reasonable.

 

[mitchrobot]

my colony is probably looking like this in ratio : 1.5.50+
its massive, but most of mine are not adults (i have anywhere from 10-20k+ depending on the time of year). i feed off adult males to my big Ts, but keep all my adult females (unless i sell them)....the nymphs go to all sizes of spiders. IMO a strong healthy colony will have a massive amount of nymphs in comparison to adults. i also have been selling more than 1000 a month without noticing a drop i population...

actually, how many animals are you trying to feed? im just going off my my numbers as i feed quite a bit of larger verts my dubia (they eat tons). if you dont have too many mouths to feed, your colony will grow and grow and eventually be pretty good sized, its kind of hard to guage at first, but once the numbers get to a certain point its almost like you hit critical mass and have a lifetime supply of them

for what its worth, keep them really warm (i have a 150w light on mine) and give em oranges (along wiht other stuff ofcourse)...i swear oranges make em breed and grow quite well

 

[Franklin]

I feed about 40 t's from 3-10" and about 15 that are .75-2"
a tegu and occasionally to a sugar glider.

i feed them water crystals, chicken mash, and assorted fruits/veggies

 

[Mister Internet]

IMO, if you have 40 T's and other animals you're trying to feed off of a self-sustaining colony, you should wait until your numbers of nymphs are more into the 1000-2000 range. Should only take another 4 months with the number of adults you have. And yes, after that it's going to be hard to feed enough of them off to SLOW the colony growth. Just follow the intuitive rules... never feed off adult females, never keep enough males around to have a 1:1 ratio... I'd actually recommend feeding off adult males to the point where you have more like a 1:5 ratio, if not a little more. Adult males get really nasty with each other when they get overcrowded and have to compete too hard for females... and 1:1 is DEFINITELY overcrowded.

Other than that, yeah... food, water, space.

 

[Matt K]

Mister Internet hit the nail on the head. "Just follow the intuitive rules... " You don't need to count and analyze what you have, but rather use some sense to what you do with the colony as a whole. Feed off males so you have some but not alot. If the group looks like its shrinking, let the colony grow for a couple months. If you see that the colony seems bigger, feed off more and/or big females. No need to segregate and count out what you have... unless you just really have nothing better to do....

 

[Franklin]

Mister Internet hit the nail on the head. "Just follow the intuitive rules... " You don't need to count and analyze what you have, but rather use some sense to what you do with the colony as a whole. Feed off males so you have some but not alot. If the group looks like its shrinking, let the colony grow for a couple months. If you see that the colony seems bigger, feed off more and/or big females. No need to segregate and count out what you have... unless you just really have nothing better to do....

the whole roach inventory as the title name was just to sound sophisticated

but im not planning on a taking them out and sorting them regularly, i was cleaning their cage and wanted an idea of how things were going.

so thanks! ill keep everyone updated and maybe ill have a big colony!

but one more question, how many dubia could live in a 10gal tupperware with sufficient heat and food/water?

 

[Warren Bautista]

A lot.


.

 

[Mister Internet]

but one more question, how many dubia could live in a 10gal tupperware with sufficient heat and food/water?

In a 10gal, I wouldn't push it much past 1500... just because they can "survive" doesn't mean it's a healthy colony. Contrary to popular belief, roaches CAN smell horrible if kept in overcrowded conditions too long. A colony can go from good to downright toxic in a matter of days once this imaginary tipping point to overcrowding is reached... it's weird, but real.

 

[Galapoheros]

Oh man, yeah, quick die-off, it can be like there's a dead rat around somewhere that's blown up like a softball and you can't find it when you have a die off. I need to put mine in a bigger container too, I'm can be a lazy diddly. But yeah, I go by feel too, no need for a feeding schedule over here. I just look at it all, fat, skinny, too dry, too wet...

 

[sparular]

Some quick ballpark math.
67 adult females * 20-40 roaches/birth * 50-100% insemination rate= 650-2600 babies in a month

If you don't use any of those for food (and given unlimited space and food) they will reach breeding age in 4-6 months. Increasing the size of your adult female population by 5-20 fold. And that's if you only bred them for one month. If they continue to reproduce at that rate every month, you will quickly have too many roaches.
Since the roach lifespan is 12-24 months (estimate 18 months), 1/18th of your adults will die each month (assuming you don't use them as feeders). To maintain a steady population you should feed off all but ~1/18th of your adult female population. In your case that's 3.72 (~4). since it takes 4-6 months for the buggers to mature, that's 5 months*4 adult female deaths/month= 20 nymphs
half of those will be male so you should have at least 40 nymphs of varying ages to maintain your population. You want some buffer room in case of disease or accidents so I would keep at least 100 nymphs of various sizes to maintain the colony at it's current size. Above that it's just accelerated colony growth and you have to decide whether you value feeding more or faster growth.
Each setup will have different growth rates brood sizes and time to maturation based on enclosure size, food type, temperature, humidity, environmental stress, and other variables we may not even know but this should give you a good estimate to begin finding a feed rate that works for you.

 

[Franklin]

Some quick ballpark math.
67 adult females * 20-40 roaches/birth * 50-100% insemination rate= 650-2600 babies in a month

If you don't use any of those for food (and given unlimited space and food) they will reach breeding age in 4-6 months. Increasing the size of your adult female population by 5-20 fold. And that's if you only bred them for one month. If they continue to reproduce at that rate every month, you will quickly have too many roaches.
Since the roach lifespan is 12-24 months (estimate 18 months), 1/18th of your adults will die each month (assuming you don't use them as feeders). To maintain a steady population you should feed off all but ~1/18th of your adult female population. In your case that's 3.72 (~4). since it takes 4-6 months for the buggers to mature, that's 5 months*4 adult female deaths/month= 20 nymphs
half of those will be male so you should have at least 40 nymphs of varying ages to maintain your population. You want some buffer room in case of disease or accidents so I would keep at least 100 nymphs of various sizes to maintain the colony at it's current size. Above that it's just accelerated colony growth and you have to decide whether you value feeding more or faster growth.
Each setup will have different growth rates brood sizes and time to maturation based on enclosure size, food type, temperature, humidity, environmental stress, and other variables we may not even know but this should give you a good estimate to begin finding a feed rate that works for you.

amazing post, thanks!! i will go buy crickets for a few weeks, and if i dont see a ton of nyphms, ill get moore crickets and feed less, and slowly transition from the little jumping devils!!

i have a kritter keeper set up with proportinal everything, size, heat food, water just with 5 adult females and 1 adult male. lets see how long it takes to see lots of babies

 

[Pacmaster]

Dont forget to feed them oranges . . .