need help with b. dubia roach colony ASAP. picking up colony (for free)

[loogielv]

I have a friend giving me several hundred b. dubia in 2 days and I need to get prepared for them. I've done some research and learned the basics, but i've never kept any type of feeder and just dont know jack about keeping and sustaining a colony of anything properly.

btw, I searched like a mad man both through the forums and through google. I found some information, but nothing pertaining to my specific questions and very few pics of setups and enclosures. I'd really like anything you have to show.

Any help anyone can offer is great. Here's some of my questions:

1) should i keep the colony in one bin and just pull out roaches as needed to feed (choosing only males of course) or should I keep breeders/feeders separate?

If i should keep em separate, what's the best way to do this and how do I know who gets transferred and how do keep the cycle going properly? move babies the second i find them until the breeders are about to die or something? then let the last batch stay in the "breeders" pen? is this even necessary?

2) right now i only have a medium sized bearded dragon and 2 anoles. nothing special, mostly getting my kids into reptiles keeping after a long hiatus from it myself. Obviously full grown male b. dubia are too big for the anoles, and probably the BD too. Is feeding the juveniles acceptable?

3) Obviously a colony of several hundred is too big for 3 little reptiles which means that I have too many roaches? HELL NO! I dont have enough reptiles! But until I get more, is it ok to just feed off roaches as needed and let the colony keep getting bigger and bigger? There's no down side right? Eventually the first set of breeders will die off and the juveniles will become breeders. The only issue I see boils down to what the answer to #1 is. If the original breeders die off, and feeders are separated, what then?

4) I read that cat/dog food is good, but then i read cat food is bad and only dog food is good (something about them dying due to impaction) but that information was nearly 2 years old. Now most people just say "feed em cat/dog food" but never specify if it is safe or not. some people say it has alot of add'l garbage that's not good for the reptiles. Any thoughts on this and feeding in general?

5) do you think 1 regular reptile under tank heater is good enough to heat a bin out in a garage where it gets to be around 30 deg F? if not, what if i insulate? keeping these things in the house w/ an 8 month pregnant wife is very hazardous to my health. some people use ceramic heaters but that's 100watts or so added to my power bill. Not really liking that. I'm looking to save money, not hide it in a utility bill.

thanks for any help and guidance.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

A couple of hundred is no problem to keep in one tub. If the colony starts getting too big and the enclosure seems over run, then you can start to separate them. A couple hundred sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. A rubbermaid tub and some egg crate should do fine to get you started. You're going to have to experiment some with the heating. A 30 degree garage is going to be a tough environment to keep tropical roaches in. They won't reproduce in cool temps and will die off. If you were keeping them in the house, one UTH would do fine. But in a cold garage, you're going to have to get creative if you want to make it work out. Your beardie should be able to take down adult dubia without a problem. You'll want to feed the anoles dubia nymphs. I would never feed my roaches dog or cat food. Why? Because I would never feed my reptiles dog or cat food. And in the end, what you feed your roaches is what you're going to be feeding your reptiles. Dog and cat food are for dogs and cats. Feed your dubia a high quality cricket/roach diet along with various fresh fruits and veggies. The fresh fruits and veggies will also provide the water that they need (you'll still need to mist to keep humidity up though). Bottom line is, if you keep them warm, humid, and well fed, you'll have no problems. If they get cold, dry, or hungry, they won't reproduce well.

 

[Salzy]

1. Personally, I keep mine separated in one small "feeder" bin and one large "breeder" bin. The breeder bin has all the adult males, females, and large nymphs too big to be fed to my animals (I don't have anything that can eat an adult at the moment). My colony isn't extremely large yet, so once a week I am able to harvest nymphs to put into the feeder bin and clean the bins while I'm doing it.

You can keep them all in one bin, but for ease of feeding and not constantly digging through the bin for nymphs, I would keep some feeders set aside at all times. Eventually, if you aren't depleting you entire bin of feeders, some will grow to be big enough nymphs that you can put them back into the breeder bin to eventually reproduce for you. For that reason, you don't want to feed out the roaches too fast or you won't be able to build up your colony.

Adult males can be fed off if there seems to be an abundance of them. Out of curiosity a couple months ago, I found that the ratio of adult males to adult females in my bin was about 1:1. I removed about half the males, making the ratio roughly 1:2 (male:female). The females began to reproduce much better without the crowding of the males.

2. The freshly born dubia nymphs should work very well for your anoles. They are quite small and could easily be consumed by them. The bearded may be able to take the adult male dubias depending on the size of your lizard. The adult males look larger due to their wings, but their bodies aren't very large at all. I'd suggest clipping the wings off with a scissors if you are going to feed them to your dragon though. I've heard that the wings are often passed undigested. Otherwise just feed it larger nymphs that it is able to get it's mouth on.

3. If you keep the proper setup with heat, water, and food, then your adults shouldn't die off very quickly. I only have a handful of adults die per month, and those are quicly replaced by growing nymphs.

If you have them separated by feeders and breeders, then every once in a while throw some of your biggest nymphs from the feeder bin into the breeder bin and allow them to grow. They will at least replace the couple adults that will inevitably die every once in a while.

4. I've heard the same thing about cat food, so I don't feed it to my roaches. I do feed them QUALITY dog food though because it has much better protein than the junk you get at Walmart or something. That's where the diffence is. I have a few good friends that feed dog food as well and their colonies do very well on it.

I also throw in scraps of anything organic from the fridge or dinner table. Potato peelings, apple cores, celery, etc. I also keep geckos, so leftover CGD (fruit paste from powder and water) goes to the roaches too.

I'd recommend putting the foods on some type of low-sided dish to keep things from being spread all over the bin. It makes removal and cleanup much easier.

5. Your roaches will do best at a temperature of about 102-105 degrees. This seems very hot to some people, but when you think about our temps being 98.6, it's really not much higher. I use a heated pet mat on the bottom of the bin, and a therapeutic heat pad (one for soothing sore muscles and such) against the back, between the bin and a wall. This holds the temperatures around 103-104 and they are producing very well. I used to only have the temp around 95-96 degrees and I wasn't getting any nymphs.

You may have to build some type of box or cubby to put the bin in to get it to heat up the way you want, but so long as you get around 100 degrees, you should be fine.

Hope that helps you out.

 

[loogielv]

...

Hope that helps you out.

You know? It really REALLY does. Thank you.

Anyone keep roaches and keep them together as opposed to seperate?

Oh Salzy, do you heat the feeder bin?

 

[loogielv]

A couple of hundred is no problem to keep in one tub. If the colony starts getting too big and the enclosure seems over run, then you can start to separate them. A couple hundred sounds like a lot, but it really isn't. A rubbermaid tub and some egg crate should do fine to get you started. You're going to have to experiment some with the heating. A 30 degree garage is going to be a tough environment to keep tropical roaches in. They won't reproduce in cool temps and will die off. If you were keeping them in the house, one UTH would do fine. But in a cold garage, you're going to have to get creative if you want to make it work out. Your beardie should be able to take down adult dubia without a problem. You'll want to feed the anoles dubia nymphs. I would never feed my roaches dog or cat food. Why? Because I would never feed my reptiles dog or cat food. And in the end, what you feed your roaches is what you're going to be feeding your reptiles. Dog and cat food are for dogs and cats. Feed your dubia a high quality cricket/roach diet along with various fresh fruits and veggies. The fresh fruits and veggies will also provide the water that they need (you'll still need to mist to keep humidity up though). Bottom line is, if you keep them warm, humid, and well fed, you'll have no problems. If they get cold, dry, or hungry, they won't reproduce well.

Really good information. I really appreciate it.
I've seen some good homemade cricket/roach feed recipes, but alot were several years old. If I wanted to keep cost of food down, I would imagine making my own food would be the best. What do you recommend as the best type of diet?

 

[Salzy]

Glad I could help.

I do heat the feeder bin, although not as much because it is a smaller bin and don't want them to overheat.

 

[loogielv]

Glad I could help.

I do heat the feeder bin, although not as much because it is a smaller bin and don't want them to overheat.

do you get breeding in the feeder bin?

 

[Salzy]

No, I don't keep any adults in there at all. No reproduction will happen unless you have mature males and females together. If you haven't seen them yet, you will distinctly be able to tell the difference between mature adults and large nymphs.

 

[loogielv]

No, I don't keep any adults in there at all. No reproduction will happen unless you have mature males and females together. If you haven't seen them yet, you will distinctly be able to tell the difference between mature adults and large nymphs.

so as soon as they're about to mature, you move them to the breeder, or they've been eaten already?

 

[Salzy]

I move them to the breeder bin. I only raise geckos, so once the roaches get too large I can't feed out anyway and they get moved out of the feeder bin.

 

[loogielv]

I move them to the breeder bin. I only raise geckos, so once the roaches get too large I can't feed out anyway and they get moved out of the feeder bin.

i really appreciate the info. great help for sure. obviously you wouldn't goto this trouble if they were worth it. But just to make sure, you love em? way better than crickets?

 

[Salzy]

Oh yeah, so much better than crickets. They don't smell, die easily, jump around, make noises, or anything that a cricket does. They breed like crazy under the best conditions and once you have a good colony going, you really don't ever have to buy feeder insects again (unless of course you want to add some diversity to your animal's diets). Honestly though, I'd recommend roaches over anything, and I'm more than happy that I got into keeping them.

 

[loogielv]

Oh yeah, so much better than crickets. They don't smell, die easily, jump around, make noises, or anything that a cricket does. They breed like crazy under the best conditions and once you have a good colony going, you really don't ever have to buy feeder insects again (unless of course you want to add some diversity to your animal's diets). Honestly though, I'd recommend roaches over anything, and I'm more than happy that I got into keeping them.

one more questions if you dont mind. what type of setup do you have regarding roach motels? tubes, or egg cartons? built something?

any pics of your colony by any chance?

 

[Salzy]

I use a combination of cardboard flats, egg cartons, and paper towel rolls. The cardboard flats were from a place I worked for keeping materials off the floor. They work well in my case as roach dividers, but I don't foresee anyone else having anything else like that. Egg cartons work extremely well, and you can get them fairly cheap from Superiorenterprise.com The more surface area you can create in the tub the better. Eventually I will use egg cartons exclusively, but for now this is working fine.

Here are a couple photos of my colony. This is just the breeder bin...a large sterilite bin with locking top. The lid has a hole cut in the center with screen hot glued to it to allow for air exchange.

 

[loogielv]

awesome. ty very much!

 

[loogielv]

just a quick bump for anyone watching. I'm looking for some up to date, best DIY roach diets. I picked up the bin of about 200 or so i'm guessing based on what the lady giving them to me said. could be less tho. she really f'd the whole thing up and i need to redo their enclosure asap. will start a diy thread on that...anyway, rambling

BEST diy diet recipes? oatmeal i heard, or even like fruit loops or another sugary cereal mixed with some good greens and such?
only calcium rich stuff to feeders, as it will kill off breeders eventually? sound right?

 

[loogielv]

one more question. do these things (b dubia) ever escape? i just convinced my wife that they can't climb, fly, make noise etc. i even lied and said i was getting a special "cricket" that can't fly, climb etc. I didn't tell her they're actually roaches. she'll never look in the bin, but if one gets out, i'm done. DONE!

edit: weird how a cricket that can't fly, climb or make noise sounds better to a woman than a roach that can't do any of those things huh?

 

[Ihaggerty1313]

To answer your question about feeding your excess adult male Dubia to your Bearded Dragons. Adult Beardies take them down w/ a quickness. I sell off loads of my excess males to my customers and their dragons never seem to get enough.

-Ian

 

[Airedale]

I have all leos, and only one can get an adult male down (just barely), so for all of my geckos, and I know this sounds gross, but I kill the roaches just before i feed them (cut off or crush the head), and cut them in half. Every one of my leos can eat them, and I just use feeding tongs to feed them. Works great, but without the choking risk.

 

[Airedale]

one more question. do these things (b dubia) ever escape? i just convinced my wife that they can't climb, fly, make noise etc. i even lied and said i was getting a special "cricket" that can't fly, climb etc. I didn't tell her they're actually roaches. she'll never look in the bin, but if one gets out, i'm done. DONE!

edit: weird how a cricket that can't fly, climb or make noise sounds better to a woman than a roach that can't do any of those things huh?

If they were called "Super Healthy Rainbow Bugs", I doubt she would care. It's just the stereotype that roaches are unsanitary and gross. I think it is B.S. One person in my grade (I'm a 9th grader) also has a leo, and when I told her about roaches, she almost screamed. She thinks crickets are cute, and the smell and noise doesn't bother her...

I hate whoever made roaches the bad guy...