Dubia's .. Sweet

Ok so i meet this really cool guy from here around the same time i got my Chameleon. we talked on here and he hooked me up with a pair of males, three females and a few nymphs. put them in my green house feed water and BAM about 40 lil dubies haha NiCe. o and i finally picked a lil one up lol these things are my worse fear. Just want to let all the people getting into diff feeders that dubias are the way to go.. thanks Brian if u see this. AKA Reptoman.. great Guy

Yep. Even though they are roaches, they are still waaay cleaner than crickets. Too bad my cham doesn't like them. I will have to decide on a faster moving roach to go with.

truth is they most likely bred before you got them. but yes, they are prolific.

maybe but would i have seen the eggs. he gave me only 3 females and 2 males. it was just the roaches nothing else in the jar.. i have been doing everything for these guys.. thought i got them to breed lol even was useing more oranges, someone says the heat humidity and oranges they love. anyways i have about 40 of these tiny tick looking dubias. either way its sweet news lol

the females keep the eggsac inside of their abdomen.

so maybe i just couldnt see the eggs. hmm i did notice one of the girls getting really big. how long does this prosess take. i had the roaches about a month.

Hey KC! You won't see any eggs except for maybe the egg case rarely. The females give live birth so they were most likely full of babies when you got them. Glad the colony is starting to grow. It should still take a couple of months before you have enough to start feeding off. Make sure you don't get rid of any adults for some time and leave plenty of nymphs around to grow up to breeding age.

i think it takes roughly a month, depending on the temperatures.. and yes i wouldnt feed ANY off until you have a strong foundation with a bunch of adults.

k sounds good to me. and cool so maybe i did breed them myself. i had temps that were perfect.. then when i put them in the green house about 4 days ago then checked on them again is when i seen the baby roaches. the humidity in the green house is way better and just seems so tropical. well guess i will leave them in there until this Texas heat picks up.

hey brian didnt even realize that was you. well cool i think i will have a good ratio in another month. and i finally picked one up, not sure if a already said that lol Roaches my worst fear. And i will keep them all. only thing is what do i do when i have way to many adults? i do not want to feed those monsters.. im sure once it gets started they will grow faster then i can feed since im not using those as a full time staple.

u like to fish They make good bait aswell as food.

cool didnt think about that.. what are u catching with those things

Dubias rule......

The breeding cycle is about a month as long as they are fed correctly, have a decent humidity (mine are at about 50%, and thriving), and have a good temperature range.

Colony Size:
You'll need something like 15-30 adult female roaches per chameleon if you are using them as a staple food item. The male to female ratio should be something like 1 male for every 4 to 5 females. If you want to boost a colony so you can feed out of it right away just pop like 1000 to 2000 mixed roaches into it at the start. Otherwise you will have to wait a couple months before the colony matures and starts really producing for you.

Cage and Temperature:
I have my colony set up in a Tupperware container (14"tall x 36" long x 14" Deep) with a heat-pad underneath one side of the tube. The heat pad is hooked up to a thermostat to maintain a temperature of 95 degrees about 1 inch off the floor. The egg crates are stacked side buy side vertically above the heat pad, this makes it easier for the roaches to get out of the heat if they need to cooldown . I also put some card board between each egg crate to prevent them from collapsing into each other and killing any roaches. The food dishes are on the other side of the tube.

(Sorry image is so crude I thru it together in the minute I have)

Food:
I use Collard Greens, Carrots, and a dry cricket/roach food. I also provide water crystals just in case they need more water than the carrots can provide. Any food placed should be inspected for mold every day, fruits and veggies should be replaced every other day. DO NOT feed them fish flakes or a high protein diet, this can make them unhealthy for your chameleons.

Cleaning:
You should spot clean out uneaten food regularly, clean completely once a month taking out all the roach poo (which doesn't sell much at all), and examine the egg crates also. If the egg crates are soiled bad replace them with new ones (Egg crates for me usually last 2 months).

Egg crates:
I came up with a method for deciding how many egg crates to use. If anyone has a better idea for this let me know.
1 egg crate for every 100 adult roaches
1 egg crate for every 200 1" roaches
1 egg crate for every 500 1/2" roaches
1 egg crate for every 1000 1/4 " roaches

(note: I typed this up quickly and didn't have time to proofread it like I normally do, so there might be some spelling/grammar errors. I'll try to fix it later when I get home)

you can breed dubias with oranges

Leaf said:

you can breed dubias with oranges

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Yes, I use carrots more cause they last longer in the cage without going bad. Plus carrots are a good source of vitamins for the roaches and it carries on to the chameleons.

Marc10edora said:

Yep. Even though they are roaches, they are still waaay cleaner than crickets. Too bad my cham doesn't like them. I will have to decide on a faster moving roach to go with.

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blatta lateralis, but they way smaller than dubia.

Can someone post a picture of a dubia roach? I have a bad roach phobia. I want to feed some to my veileds when they get bigger, because I hear the smell less then the crickets. But I'm not sure I can handle them. lol. My family thinks I'm crazy because I hold snakes but am terrorified of an roach. I thought maybe if I could see what one looked like I might be able to handle it.

here you go. Still can't believe my wife let me keep these in the house but they are much quieter, less smelly, and cheaper than getting crickets by the thousands. I thnk the smell was what finally convinced her to cave on the roach issue

I might be able to handle those. They look more like beetles. Do they run fast or are they slow? If they are slow might not be too bad. What if they excaped? I definetly couldn't handle an infestation? I might just have to stick to supers and crickets.

What temps. do they have to be kept? If I could keep them in my shed in the summer, and in the furnace room in the winter..then I might be okay. Just worried about finding excapees in my bed. I wouldn't sleep for a month. thinking about one of those crawling in my mouth...