Iggy's first dubias

[woodson28]

I am attempting to start a dubia colony & I've given them a few days to gutload.. I rushed home from work today to feed Iggy & he absolutely loved them! Normally he will just give me this attitude look when he's done & I know he doesn't want anymore. But Wow he loved these roaches. He kept going & going. I finally stopped giving them to him & he just stayed there & kept staring at me for the longest time waiting for more.
He is 4 months old, how much should he be eating?

Look at that full belly! I may have to reinforce that hammock!

 

[Germ]

Same situation as crix, as much as they will eat in a 10 to 15 minute period per feeding. It is impossible to give a number, because of different sized roaches, different gutloads, different appetites, etc. Once the novelty of a new feeder wears off, it will settle in & generally know when to stop. My youngsters get as much as they want to eat, left overs are left in the enclosure for later snacks & removed before lights out.

By the way, your colony will not take off if you continue to feed out of it before it is well established. Unless of course, you continue to buy roaches specifically for feeding so as not to deplete the colony. You should start out with 100 or more roaches in the colony & do not feed out of it until your first nymphs are at least half sized adults, then your colony should be able to keep up.

If you feed some out of it, feed males, to keep the male to female ratio down to the vicinity of 1:4. Very young Nymphs can be hard to sex because they are so small & is a pain in the butt to sex any of them until they are adults, because you have to turn each one over and look at their belly to tell. But it can be done.

When I first started my colony, the roaches that I got were only approximately 1/2"to 3/4" & I started with 100. I put them in a sealed container, then put them in the fridge to slow their metabolism down, until they weren't moving anymore for about 5 minutes (they will be fine when they warm up again). Then I quickly checked each one individually, separating them. Once separated, I counted how many I had of each, then put them back in their colony bin with only enough males to give a 1:4 ratio. Put the leftover males into a separate container for proper gutloading & fed them off. Did not feed out of the colony for months, until it was well established.

This is how you tell the difference between a male & female by looking at it's underside, these are 2 of my adult Discoids, so the belly color thing is irrelevant, but it is the belly segments how you tell on nymphs.

Good Luck

 

[Germ]

Also just as an FYI: One female will produce 20-40 nymphs every 4-6 weeks depending on the environment & diet. So the colony must be established, you have to have reasonable number of females to keep up. They grow slowly, they do not turn into Mature adults until they are 3-5 months old, again depending on their environment. You must also allow the 1st nymphs to grow up to replace the original ones as they die off.

 

[woodson28]

Awesome. Very specific info on when to feed in order for the colony to keep up. Don't think I can stomach sexing them. Definitely can't put em in our fridge. (think I just threw up in my mouth). I still can't believe I even have them. Or how weird it is that I'm so excited about having them lol. I have 300 mixed size roaches but only 5 breeding pairs, as far as I know.. I didn't even count what I fed today, didn't think it was going to be that many. I figured I could feed from it & buy more when I need to. Now I know exactly what to do. Thanks again Germ!

 

[woodson28]

How many adult females would be a good amount to begin with? I have a heat pad to keep it around 85deg but its warm at night right now, so I don't use. Also, would a "cleaner crew" be helpful? Dermestid beetles/mealworms?

 

[Germ]

I wound up with 50 or so Females, kept 15 males (Fed off the rest) & my colony took off very well. Ideally you should have 1 Male to every 3-4 females. This helps to avoid fighting & overbreeding of the females.