For anyone debating dubai

andy27012

Member
This is for anyone debating upon whether or not they want to feed or raise blaptica dubai for their chams. I have spent the last five months dealing with crickets, the smell, the escapees and the nearly fifty percent death rate despite food and water gel provided at all times. I have had a colony of dubai for about 5 days and I LOVE them! The chams inhale them, they don't stink, their not finicky and they're SLOW! Once you get past the expense of the initial setup, mine was around 60 bucks w/heating pad they are SO much better then crickets IMHO. After a couple of days you get past the fact that their roaches and even handling them is less tricky then crickets as there not always trying to hop off somewhere. I haven't really got the colony going yet so I don't know how reproduction will be but right now I have 13 adult females so that should yield around 300 babies a month which is more then enough to feed my two guys. Right now I'm trying to feed off some of the adult males as I currently have a 1:3 ratio and would like to get it down to 2:1. I'm posting this simply because if I had seen something like this I would have tried dubais a long time ago. Hope everyone and everything is well.
Andrew
 
I am sure what you say is true but I have a phobia of roaches. No joke. I just freak out when I see them.
 
Slow

I like them too but they breed pretty slow....it's gonna take a while for that colony to be stable.
 
honestly no! It is a serious problem that I have with roaches whether it be cockroaches of dubias or whatever!!!

Lol! Honestly, I HATED those big black water Roches we'd get around the house. At first Dubia freaked me out a tad bit but after a little handling, I got over it. :) I'm sure your Cham loves you even if you don't feed him Roches. :D
 
I bought a cup of dubia's from Mulberry Farms to see if my chams would eat them and they absolutely would not touch them. Too bad, it would save me alot more money to have a colony of roaches than to continually buy crickets.:(:rolleyes:
 
I bought a cup of dubia's from Mulberry Farms to see if my chams would eat them and they absolutely would not touch them. Too bad, it would save me alot more money to have a colony of roaches than to continually buy crickets.:(:rolleyes:

Did you try putting them on the screen and let them climb up? My little guy showed NO interest at all at first but now loves them. Once he recognizes them as being a food source, he'll love them.
 
They aren't roaches. They are beetles! :D It might help you if you buy a small amount of the really really small babies (they look like/are the size of Rollie pollies!) and just go from there. You don't even have to touch them! Use 12" tweezers. Do it for your chameleon! Tif (miss lily) decided to start this way as she absolutely did not like roaches at all!

300 a month is supposing most/all produce every month. It will probably take quite a while for you to be able to actually feed from it without killing the population.

Edit: the white ones have never let me down! My chameleons couldn't refuse a white dubia!
 
You are afraid of roaches, but you handle crickets ok?...

OMG crickets are nothing compared to roaches. Seriously, I cannot explain why it is that way but it is. I would probably have to go through some type of therapy to handle them! I saw a small roach in my house and I put 18 traps in my house and garage cause I was afraid if I saw one there would be 100's. I have not seen another one BTW but that is just the way my mind works.
 
I bought a cup of dubia's from Mulberry Farms to see if my chams would eat them and they absolutely would not touch them. Too bad, it would save me alot more money to have a colony of roaches than to continually buy crickets.:(:rolleyes:

I bought some dubias years ago, for our first chameleon. He half ate one -spit out the other half- and would not touch one again. After a couple of months of having them, I had dubias up the ying yang, so I gave them away after placing an add at the local Petsmart.
 
Did you try putting them on the screen and let them climb up? My little guy showed NO interest at all at first but now loves them. Once he recognizes them as being a food source, he'll love them.

I think that was the problem, they have been fed crickets as their staple basically their whole life and when i put this foreign bug they never seen in their cage they're like WHAT THE?

But yes I let the roaches climb all over the place lol
 
I love the 'you-expect-me-to-eat-that-flat-brown-thing' face. :)

Again, freshly molted white ones! White bugs make my chameleons go crazy!
 
I think that was the problem, they have been fed crickets as their staple basically their whole life and when i put this foreign bug they never seen in their cage they're like WHAT THE?

But yes I let the roaches climb all over the place lol

Dubia are a lot slower and "calmer" than crickets... I have also read that you can put them on their backs and as they try to turn themselves back around, their feet kick and make lots of movement. Didn't try but also read that they will readily take freshly molted (white) Dubia.
 
Dubia are a lot slower and "calmer" than crickets... I have also read that you can put them on their backs and as they try to turn themselves back around, their feet kick and make lots of movement. Didn't try but also read that they will readily take freshly molted (white) Dubia.

Thanks for the advice. maybe i will try offering them again using the some of those tips...
 
Or you could try feeding nothing but dubias for a few days... if he's hungry he will hit one and realize how good they taste! Rest will be history.
 
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