Overrun with Dubia's - Help!

kgallego

Member
I found myself becoming overrun with Dubia Roaches. I keep 20 adult females and 4 adult males in my breeder bin. This was intended to supply 2 adult panther's (male & female). I found that as my panthers became adults, their appetite decreased significantly. My staple feeders are Dubia Roaches and Superworms. They absolutely love the Super Worms, but, in order to get them to eat the Dubia Roaches, I have to only offer Dubia's, and after a 2-3 day hunger strike, they will eat only 1 or 2 per day (3/4" roaches) at most. Most days they won't eat any. Needless to say, my roach population is growing much faster than I hoped. My feeder roaches are gut loaded with Repashy's Bug Burger as their only food source.

Has anyone experienced this loss of appetite for Dubia's? Any suggestions what I can change to make my Cham's chow down on the Dubia's like they used to as they were growing?:confused::confused::confused:

Thanks,

Kelsey

P.S. Fortunately I picked up a couple more young panther's, and they are devouring dubia's like their chocolate cake.
 
my chams loved them at first but they stopped. i ended up selling my dubias and eventually the entire colony. i couldn't get the dubias to move and jump like the crickets so they lost interest quickly.
 
If your guys cup feed, you could put a superworm in a cup with a bunch of the dubia. I had a female panther who ate dubia no problem and for over a week she wouldn't touch them. Now I put 1 superworm with 5-6 dubia in her cup and she will end up getting a couple of dubia on accident before getting the superworm!

Worst case scenario, you sell off some of them locally or online. Pretty much with dubia. Either you produce too many or not enough!
 
2 3/4 -1" dubias a day is a pretty good pace for an adult panther. Thats close to a dozen crickets a day in protein. Some panthers will just eat a couple of supers every other day and call it good. My semi adult 400g oust will only eat 4 supers worth of insects day and hes still growing alittle and 2x the weight of a panther. If i fed him just adult male dubia, i bet he would only be able to eat 5 a week.

If you want to slow down production of the dubia, keep them at 70-75F. Ive even kept mine at 65F in the winter. They wont breed, but their lives are 2x longer.
 
If your guys cup feed, you could put a superworm in a cup with a bunch of the dubia. I had a female panther who ate dubia no problem and for over a week she wouldn't touch them. Now I put 1 superworm with 5-6 dubia in her cup and she will end up getting a couple of dubia on accident before getting the superworm!

Worst case scenario, you sell off some of them locally or online. Pretty much with dubia. Either you produce too many or not enough!

Thanks for the input. I do cup feed and I've been trying that. I've added another aspect to cup feeding though, that has proven to be very successful for making Dubia's more presentable. My cup is a ceramic bowl with smooth edges that the dubia can't climb. I glued a small stick pointed straight up from the center of the bowl. The dubia's climb all over the stick - as do the superworms. However, the cham's are very good at picking out the worms and leaving the roaches.

One other thing I'm trying to manage my colony is feeding roaches to praying mantids, then feeding the mantids to the chams. They love the mantids, but taking care of ~50+ mantids is a time consuming pain in the rear. Have you tried anything like this?
 
2 3/4 -1" dubias a day is a pretty good pace for an adult panther. Thats close to a dozen crickets a day in protein. Some panthers will just eat a couple of supers every other day and call it good. My semi adult 400g oust will only eat 4 supers worth of insects day and hes still growing alittle and 2x the weight of a panther. If i fed him just adult male dubia, i bet he would only be able to eat 5 a week.

If you want to slow down production of the dubia, keep them at 70-75F. Ive even kept mine at 65F in the winter. They wont breed, but their lives are 2x longer.

This is good to know. I'm not worried about my cham's health - which is good. They are in great shape, healthy, and don't look hungry at all. So I suppose if 2 x 3/4" roaches is sufficient to satisfy their needs, then I have nothing to worry about.

Thanks!
 
Looks like you need to get more pets. Haha. My boys only eat a couple dubias every couple days. But I do feed the dubias to mantids sometimes and I got a couple juvie whites tree frogs who are eating machines! You are right though, mantids are a big pain....I can lose my patience with them all the time.
 
One other thing I'm trying to manage my colony is feeding roaches to praying mantids, then feeding the mantids to the chams. They love the mantids, but taking care of ~50+ mantids is a time consuming pain in the rear. Have you tried anything like this?

I have not tried mantids just because they are a pain haha. I was really thinking about it, but between everything else there just isn't time.

In terms of my feeder cups, I just use the standard 12 oz plastic ones. I put enough dubia where the super gets covered with the roaches. You are right though and sometimes they get the superworm on the first try. But I have found she at least gets a few dubia a week.

She went on a 2 week hunger strike. I tried 8 or so different feeders and she wanted nothing. Thought maybe she was gravid with an infertile clutch, but was not. She didn't want the supers at first but that's what she eats mostly now with the occasional dubia.
 
I have not tried mantids just because they are a pain haha. I was really thinking about it, but between everything else there just isn't time.

In terms of my feeder cups, I just use the standard 12 oz plastic ones. I put enough dubia where the super gets covered with the roaches. You are right though and sometimes they get the superworm on the first try. But I have found she at least gets a few dubia a week.

She went on a 2 week hunger strike. I tried 8 or so different feeders and she wanted nothing. Thought maybe she was gravid with an infertile clutch, but was not. She didn't want the supers at first but that's what she eats mostly now with the occasional dubia.

Yeah, I believe I'm going to have to start a superworm breeding project. The first time I tried it, it was an epic failure. Had plenty of beetles, but the beetles lived for 2.5 months, and then died. Out of 20 beetles I found 2 baby superworms. I must be doing something wrong. I put them in a container with an egg crate and about 1/3 inch of oats.

Do you know much about breeding supers? Typically how many babies you should get out of them?

Thanks,

Kelsey
 
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