Dubia Roaches

I got a few dubias last Saturday. I bought about 7 or 8 females and a few males. Right now I have them in a small container but tomorrow, I'm moving them up to a 56qt tub. I heard these guys were easy, but I didn't think they were this easy! I literally just threw them in with some egg carton and toilet paper rolls and gave them some orange slices. I just found over 30 babies crawling around the container and many of the females are still fat.

Are oranges all they need or would providing other food in addition to the oranges be better? I was told all they needed was oranges. That's all I've been feeding them for a week. I was thinking of providing a mix of dog food and oats as a dry food.

How long does it take them to grow up into breedable adults? These things are awesome! And no smell! All I can really smell is a very faint smell that is almost citrus like. Its not offensive at all. I can't wait to see what my leo thinks of these.

I feed mine all sorts of stuff. Bananas, mangos, apples, etc...anything that isnt fresh.

The more heat you give them, the faster they will grow, and the more they will eat.

They mature in about 4-5 months and will live about 12 after that. A small colony will take a while to start up. I would leave them alone for about 6 months.

We have some.... Well a lot lol. We give them water crystals,oats,oranges,apples .... They are easy to take care of. No smell really so that's a good thing. Once they get breeding and your number of adults increase then you can start feeding off a few. Our Sav just loves them!

im thinking about starting a colony for my emperor pair as crickets are annoying and they die quite fast and im getting annoyed of running to the pet store every week for crickets.
what size tub would i need?
also where would i get some?

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Originally Posted by mark and marley

im thinking about starting a colony for my emperor pair as crickets are annoying and they die quite fast and im getting annoyed of running to the pet store every week for crickets.
what size tub would i need?
also where would i get some?

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a big tub from wals mart would do well...dont know size but enough so theyll expand and you dont have to worry about being too small...i got my dubias on kingsnake and it was free shipping i believe.

thanks ill check em out there.
:hijackd:sorry

Oh another question about these guys. How often does a female have babies? I am assuming she has several sets of babies throughout her lifetime. The little babies are scurrying around. They are in the 56qt now and I realize I need more adults! I'm going to the store tomorrow for live feeders and will probably be picking up more.

When I kept dubias I essentially fed roach chow from http://www.theroachguy.com/ exclusively. I also used water crystals to provide moisture.

I went from one hundred or so to THOUSANDS (so many I couldn't count) in the biggest tub I could get at wal-mart. Seriously, go as big as you can.

They really are super easy, pretty much feed and forget. Once a colony gets going, there is no stopping it :D

I lost one male, but other than that these guys I've pretty much just left alone except for giving them some oats and oranges. Do you think they'd eat that powdery stuff at the bottom of rodent lab block bags? I have an almost unlimited supply of that stuff. If I could use it as roach food, that would be awesome. If not, then I'll stick to a homemade food.

I'm pretty sure I have more babies. They are almost.....cute. :P If I can I plan on getting 20-30 more adults. My tub's not very big and I currently don't have space for a bigger one. Once I move I might be able to up the size of the tub and go bigger. Dubia roaches as food are not very common in my area. So far only one store carries them. I got them to breed so I'd have a good supply of feeders for when I start breeding leopard geckos but for right now I just have the one leo. I could sell extras to people in my area. :D Once the colony gets going anyway. I'm also trying my hand at super worms. I've got about 7 or 8 pupa and 1 beetle. They are sooo slow.

I got 20 more roaches. 5 males and 15 females. :D I can't wait to start seeing a whole bunch of little baby roaches. I think this is it for buying any more. While these are incredibly cheap, 29 adult roaches and their babies are enough for now. I'm basically just going to feed them and leave them alone to produce babies. I probably have around 30-40 babies right now.