Just Ordered 1000 Crickets

[Germ]

Yup, I think they went to $.12/cricket at Petsmart here now. Glad my cricket buying days are long gone.

 

[Pat B]

My petsmart is 10 cents a piece.....how long do i have to buy these little expensive creatuares. I found several online sites but shipping is hire than the crickets because of overnight shipping. Don't know what to do....any suggestions??

 

[Aleena]

I finally ordered a box... the crickets will be gone in a week anyway. Darned gluttons! going through 100+/day now.

 

[Germ]

My answer was a Roach colony, but they can take approximately 8+ months or so to be established enough to be able to feed out of it, depending on the size & numbers that you can start out with. BDs are not a cheap pet to feed at pet store prices, that there is no doubt of. There are quite a number or feeder suppliers that offer free shipping, likely not overnight though.

 

[Aleena]

Unfortunately, me and roaches get along less than me and crickets.

 

[Pat B]

I finally ordered a box... the crickets will be gone in a week anyway. Darned gluttons! going through 100+/day now.

lol....I feel your pain. I have to go today and get more....I will probably break down and by a box.....100 crickets/$10 at PS....or 500 crickets through mailorder for $25....not too hard to figure out.....

 

[Aleena]

lol....I feel your pain. I have to go today and get more....I will probably break down and by a box.....100 crickets/$10 at PS....or 500 crickets through mailorder for $25....not too hard to figure out.....

The pet store i got them at was 1000/$25. I just got them home today though, and there are probably 200 dead. Sucky! I'm not about to count them out and figure out how many I have that are still alive, maybe they accounted for dead ones? Who knows.

 

[Vincent]

My answer was a Roach colony, but they can take approximately 8+ months or so to be established enough to be able to feed out of it, depending on the size & numbers that you can start out with. BDs are not a cheap pet to feed at pet store prices, that there is no doubt of. There are quite a number or feeder suppliers that offer free shipping, likely not overnight though.

dubia roaches can be a stable food source?

 

[Germ]

dubia roaches can be a stable food source?

Most definitely, actually are better than Crix. Much better Meat/Shell ratio & higher protein content %. I have Discoid Roaches, very similar to Dubia, which are more common. They have the same basic characteristics & care, look very similar until adults, then look quite different. One is no better than the other as feeders, I'm told that the Discoids move faster than Dubia though.

BTW - It's 'Staple' food not 'Stable' ...

 

[Vincent]

Most definitely, actually are better than Crix. Much better Meat/Shell ratio & higher protein content %. I have Discoid Roaches, very similar to Dubia, which are more common. They have the same basic characteristics & care, look very similar until adults, then look quite different. One is no better than the other as feeders, I'm told that the Discoids move faster than Dubia though.

BTW - It's 'Staple' food not 'Stable' ...

im trying to breed my dubia roaches but have nothing


right now i have my roaches in a tube under a 40wat in for red heat lamp. does it take along time for them to breed?

 

[Germ]

It takes a long time. they don't turn into adults until they are 3-4 months old, then they have to breed, form the eggs, lay the egg sac, retract it into another cavity in the females body to incubate. It is a long process, 1 adult female will have 20-40 nymphs every 4-6 weeks if the temps & breeding ratio is right. Do you have any adults?

 

[Vincent]

It takes a long time. they don't turn into adults until they are 3-4 months old, then they have to breed, form the eggs, lay the egg sac, retract it into another cavity in the females body to incubate. It is a long process, 1 adult female will have 20-40 nymphs every 4-6 weeks if the temps & breeding ratio is right. Do you have any adults?

i have no adults, it turns out i bought mix sizes of roaches ,but he gave me no adults

 

[Germ]

Well, they aren't going to breed until you let them grow into adults .

 

[Vincent]

should i just buy adults

 

[Germ]

That is up to you, adults are generally quite expensive & you want to have a Male:Female ratio of 1:3or4. I generally just feed off more males than females to keep the ratio in check.

 

[Vincent]

what if you were me,(dont worry it wont happen again and you know what i mean)what would you do???

so

That is up to you, adults are generally quite expensive & you want to have a Male:Female ratio of 1:3or4. I generally just feed off more males than females to keep the ratio in check.

what would you do

That is up to you, adults are generally quite expensive & you want to have a Male:Female ratio of 1:3or4. I generally just feed off more males than females to keep the ratio in check.

oh and what do you usually feed your roaches

 

[Germ]

My colony, I feed dog food, - carrots, halved potatoes & leftover cores/stalks, melon rinds, greens from the table & BD food (Greens), for moisture.

My initial order of roaches was very disappontingly smaller nymphs, nothing over 5/8". I bought 100 & once they were old enough to easily tell the sex by looking at their bellies, I sorted them to give me 50-60 females to 15 males & fed off the remaining males. Once they began breeding, I only fed some of the males from the first wave of offspring & allowed the rest to grow to adults also. Once this was acheived, my colony was well established & I could feed as much as I wanted. This process took 8-10 months before I could readily feed out of it. I then placed the ones that I planned on feeding in a separate smaller container, in order to properly gutload for feeding to the BDs, replenishing this container from the breeding colony as needed.

If you want quicker results, then you will have to purchase much older subadults, or adults & pay the price.

 

[Germ]

Click on my signature, there are lots of HD vids of roaches eating & being ate.

This one is my fav, some really good close ups of the Roaches eating. In HD so if your connection is quick enough play it full screen at the highest res you can. Speakers on.

 

[Aleena]

Thought y'all might find this link fascinating, was reading a little on the debate on black crickets on the reptile mag I got at the pet store today. Quite the read, if you're worried about black crickets, complete with nutritional chart
http://www.ghann.com/gryllus_info.cfm

 

[Germ]

I don't know, but neither of those are similar to the 'Black' Cricket's around here & I see no reference to them as Black Crix .

Couldn't help but notice that on that nutritional chart, that the fat (%) content of a mealworm is half that of a Superworm & equal to the pheonix worm. Yet the Myth that mealworms are so fatty compared to other worm feeders, continues .

Thanks for sharing.