Breeding Dubia Roaches?

[Beware_of_Gecko]

I normally fed my geckos mealworms up until a couple months ago due to this "mealworm shortage" and crickets are killing me with the price and smell.

What kind of roaches do your recommend for leopard geckos?

How easy are they to breed and how long would it take me to get enough offspring to have consistent food for my 2 geckos?

Not looking for a complete guide just looking for a nudge in the right direction.

Any other information on them would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[hoppslover]

I have started raising Dubias. They are pretty easy. not much work to keep them. no smell, and they are not nearly as freeky as i thought they would be to handle. I have been pretty slow to harvest them for my geckos as I have 14 and dont want to feed myself out of roaches. So I have been taking it slow. A few a week. I have had them for a couple of months. I have noticed that my colony is growing just not to the point yet that I want to really feed off of my colony. Go to Theroachguy.com. He has some good info on his webpage.

 

[LeapinLizards]

I started a Dubia colony about a month and a half ago. Already, I have TONS of little babies running around. I started with 160 mixed sized nymphs, and I believe 3 or 4 adult pairs.

I set them up in a tub, with a heat pad under one side (egg crates vertical above it), and their food and water on the other, cooler side. Haven't touched them for almost two months, and just had to clean their tub last night...it was not even the least bit stinky. They smell like their food source.

After about 2 months, I can now start feeding my youngest on the dubia exclusively, no more crickets!!! I'm going to give it a little longer though, to start feeding my adults. I currently have 4 adults, 2 juveniles. Within a month I'll make that 7 adults, 2 juveniles I just want to be sure my colony is established enough. Come spring, I'll be getting an additional lot of nymphs to get some mixed blood in my breeding stock.

One thing I did notice with the Dubia, versus crickets or mealies is that the geckos will not eat as many. I was feeding my little ones 6-10 crickets at a time, and the same geckos will only eat 2-4 Dubia. It's nice!!!

 

[fOOlsgOld]

I went with dubias. Check out www.bestroach.com and www.theroachguy.com for more information. I got mine from the former and am planing on getting another order from theroachguy some time next year just to get some 'new blood' in my colony.
EDIT: Bestroach sells other kinds of roaches and has information on them and theroachguy sells dubia only.

 

[thumper]

i chose lobsters. aaron pauling (www.aaronpauling.com) told me they are the better choice of roaches. they were a lot cheaper than dubias, and i was told they breed faster. i started with 200 (and they only costed 12 bucks!) and i waited 2 months before sharing them with my 9 various animals. better then crickets and mealworms by far. they have bigger stomachs then crickets so thats why geckos eat less roaches.

 

[Mclaughlin]

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[BT11SS]

I'm thinking of starting to breed my own dubia roaches so I've been doing a lot of research. As far as heating the for the colony, how do you heat it? I've read several places that people use a "human heating pad". I looked at them at the store last night and all the ones I found have an automatic shut off after 60 minutes. Am I looking at the right heating pads or how do you get around this?