Dubia colony. For one.

[jbangalanga]

Hello,

I am going to purchase a panther Cham within a month and wanted to start a colony. Does anyone have specifics on raising a colony for one Cham? I don't want to start raising more roaches than the Cham will eat. Let's assume roaches are 40% of the diet.

What temp/humidity should I keep the roaches?
How many should I start with?
Best way to maintain a steady supply, yet keep the colony relatively small.


Is this even something i need to worry about? Any help or advice is appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Seiryu]

Hello! I have had Dubias for well over 5 years now. If you're only looking for 40% of his diet to be dubia, you may not want to keep a colony. Although they are very easy to care for, unlike crickets where you need to clean daily.

50-70% Humidity is ideal with 85-95 F for optimal breeding. You don't want to use a heat bulb though. Either heat the room (space heater etc) or use some type of heat pad underneath.

I would recommend maybe getting 15-20 females and 5-10 males. Each female produces 10-40 babies a month. Usually it's not quite 30 days on the dot though. Just make sure if you do start the colony that you let it be for a couple of months before feeding out of it. You want some bigger ones coming up so when the adults die you are replenishing them.

40% of diet as dubia, you might feed 50-75 dubia a month to 1 cham at 1-3 a day.

The thing with dubia are, for most people. Either you aren't producing enough, or you produce too many. It's very hard to get roughly the right amount you'd need each month. Worst case scenario, you could sell the extras on craigslist or friends just to get rid of some!

If you have any questions, feel free to message me!

 

[Olimpia]

It's always worth breeding if you can so you can save money somehow. This hobby seems to be such a money pit that you need to save where you can. So start a colony and that will free you up to buy in other bugs, like worms, mantises, crickets, whatever. I have essentially made the switch to roaches and with the $30-40 I'm not spending bi-monthly to get crickets I can order the variety "treat" insects more often. Or hey, even maybe... just maybe... save a little money and have it NOT all go to the lizards lol.

And then it's true, if you feel that you have too many you can sell them at local reptile shows or on the forum to other members. So the roaches can end up paying for themselves in very little time.