Breeding crickets

[kitedemon]

Breeding crix, (roaches are wicked illegal where I am so it is a silly point if you can't you can't move on) isn't super hard the first issue is cleaning they need clean and healthy conditions. Food and water and good quality. I use bug burger by rhapsody (sp?) as food and water. I have a few tubs filled with coco coir damp coco coir. I keep a bunch of crix adults in it and when after a while when they have been chirping a lot i'll just remove the males and leave the females in for an extra week then remove them to a cleaned new tub. The old one I'll put fresh cricket water in and a flat lid with bran and fish flakes for the hatchlings. I keep the whole works at or near the mid 80s and keep a FL light on them. You need to keep a ring of packing tape well stuck on the inside lip the pinheads can escape by walking up the walls. There are a lot of info out there this is a super basic method. I found it easier to keep a bunch together and then move than pick out females and give them a lay box. I loose tons of eggs to predation but I get enough for my beardie so it doesn't matter much. It may not be super efficient but it works for me.

[Dark Lady Kat]

Dubias are much more nutritious than crickets as a feeder. Dubia roaches cannot climb surfaces either so you don have to worry about escaped roaches. Roaches are not dirty animals. They're found in dumps because there's a food source nearby and they hate light. Also dubia roaches are very slow moving and much cleaner than crickets.

I will consider it and do more research also I would have to order them from somewhere do the adults get to large to feed to a leopard gecko I do not want to be breeding something that cant be feed tot he lizard throughout its lifespan with crickets I have never gotten any that where to large.

so life span of dubia is 1-2years with thousands of babies produced
life span of cricket ?? with up to a thousand babies produced

growth rate of dubia months
growth rate of crickets ????

please give me something to compare to

[OctagonGecko729]

Dubias smell alot less then crickets because they do not die nearly as often. They are much cleaner then crickets in my opinion. Remember that these would be roaches feeding off of fresh veggies, dry/wet diet (I recommend Repashy bug burger) all of which is much cleaner then what you will see roaches in the "wild" eating. Some myths about dubias is that they do not climb and do not fly, this is not exactly true. Depending on the surface of the bin they can climb the rubbermaid type especially the smaller ones which have less mass to deal with. This can be solved by simply adding a few rings of clear packing tape around the walls, they can not climb the clear packing tape, that is certain. Also, male dubia certainly can glide and flutter fly, I know this isn't what most people want to hear but it is true. You have to get them really hot for them to flutter fly but they can reach about 6ft off the ground from inside the bin on the floor. So long as you keep the lid on though and turn the light on when you open the bin you should have no worries about one of them coming out, they absolutely hate light.

[3skulls]

I'm not sure how many one lizard would eat in a weeks time or up to what size.
You would just allow your adults to breed, no need to feed them off. If you took the nymphs out a kept them at a cooler temp, they would grow pretty slow. The smaller they are the more you would feed off.
I think it takes about 6 months for them to reach adult size (that's off the top of my head)
I think once you had a system, knowing the numbers you need, you could control it so it doesn't get out of hand.

If you want to just try some small ones as feeders first, shoot me a PM

This is coming from a person that hated roaches as well :p

[barbie.dragon]

I will consider it and do more research also I would have to order them from somewhere do the adults get to large to feed to a leopard gecko I do not want to be breeding something that cant be feed tot he lizard throughout its lifespan with crickets I have never gotten any that where to large.

so life span of dubia is 1-2years with thousands of babies produced
life span of cricket ?? with up to a thousand babies produced

growth rate of dubia months
growth rate of crickets ????

please give me something to compare to

Google has a lot of information. But here's a good website to start with:
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bandung...dubiacare.html

[barbie.dragon]

Dubias smell alot less then crickets because they do not die nearly as often. They are much cleaner then crickets in my opinion. Remember that these would be roaches feeding off of fresh veggies, dry/wet diet (I recommend Repashy bug burger) all of which is much cleaner then what you will see roaches in the "wild" eating. Some myths about dubias is that they do not climb and do not fly, this is not exactly true. Depending on the surface of the bin they can climb the rubbermaid type especially the smaller ones which have less mass to deal with. This can be solved by simply adding a few rings of clear packing tape around the walls, they can not climb the clear packing tape, that is certain. Also, male dubia certainly can glide and flutter fly, I know this isn't what most people want to hear but it is true. You have to get them really hot for them to flutter fly but they can reach about 6ft off the ground from inside the bin on the floor. So long as you keep the lid on though and turn the light on when you open the bin you should have no worries about one of them coming out, they absolutely hate light.

I usually see them kept in those big plastic trash cans and aquariums but they are very poor climbers compared to other roaches. Well when I loved in Asia those roaches were like acrobats.

[3skulls]

They can climb the silicon in glass tanks.
I use "Really Useful Boxes" slick sides and locking lids.

[OctagonGecko729]

I usually see them kept in those big plastic trash cans and aquariums but they are very poor climbers compared to other roaches. Well when I loved in Asia those roaches were like acrobats.

Yeah they are pretty clumbsy, the problem is that they have all day long everyday to figure it out. But yeah the clear packing tape works perfectly, you only "need" one layer but I've got three going, because they creep me out a little aswell .