Dubia Roaches vs. Crickets

[ZombiGecko]

Leave a dish full of mealworms in.... they will eat then when they are hungry... just refill when empty......

 

[hikki]

Adult dubia are only for GIANT leopards?

 

[DrCarrotTail]

I find the adult dubia females are hard for even my 100g male to eat. He can take down the males just fine. They seem to prefer and I feel better about feeding ones that are about 1/2-3/4 inches.

 

[Treefolk]

Leave a dish full of mealworms in.... they will eat then when they are hungry... just refill when empty......

Ya, it takes less effort, but provides less nutrition. Its like going to McDonalds instead of cooking a nice meal at home.

 

[ZombiGecko]

Ya, it takes less effort, but provides less nutrition. Its like going to McDonalds instead of cooking a nice meal at home.

Why do you think this? That is true about wax worms but not mealworms.. many of us feed just mealworms as a staple.

 

[Olympus]

Why do you think this? That is true about wax worms but not mealworms.. many of us feed just mealworms as a staple.

A varied diet is always going to be healthier, especially in the long run. With the exception of animals like pandas or koalas, relatively few species feed exclusively on a single food item their entire lives. Different feeders will supply your reptile with different vitamins/nutrients and in different ratios, which help to fill in gaps. For example, crickets have about 3 times more vitamin C in them naturally than mealworms do. Butterworms have a significant amount more calcium than mealworms, as another example. So by sticking to a single feeder you have to work more diligently when gutloading and supplementing, and most people don't really put that much effort into gutloading.

Throwing worms in a bowl is certainly easier, but not necessarily the best way to do things. Especially with as little effort as it takes to keep a roach colony these days! They practically breed just by looking at each other, they gutload super well, have a lot more meat on them, and provide really cost-effective variety. I understand it's not practical for most people to breed 15 species of bugs at home but having at least 2-3 species on rotation is not too hard.

 

[GexPex]

I feed a combination of crickets, dubias, and mealworms. The only one I breed currently? Dubias. I will NEVER consider breeding crickets. I only feed crickets to provide variety, and to make sure that the babies that will be going to new homes will eat crickets regularly in case the new home doesn't want to do dubias. I will occasionally feed waxworms to breeder females or if anyone else needs to gain weight, but this is maybe once every 3 months or so. One female of mine gets picky when she's laying, so a pinky mouse every 1-2 months helps keep her at a good weight (in addition to the regular feedings, but she doesn't eat as much compared to the other females).

But yes, I voted dubias. They're the feeder champions...even though I still don't like handling adults (nymphs are fine).

 

[indyana]

After about a month of messing with my cricket cages, I'm still losing a lot of them, even with supposedly ideal conditions. I've started considering trying out roaches and seeing if I can maintain those more reliably. Only problem is that I have a bunch of clear critter keeper style plastic cages now. Could I just line the sides with egg crates to block light?

 

[GexPex]

You could tape cardboard around on the outside of them...

 

[indyana]

Hmm, that could be a pain when moving/cleaning. I'll look into either getting a new bin or keeping the clear bins inside a larger opaque one. I'll be sure to add my notes to this thread after I've tried dubia out... I know I'm pretty darn sick of the crickets at this point. Spend more time trying to make sure they don't die than I do taking care of my gecko!

 

[Sprogog]

@Indyana a good technique is to get a roll of electrical insulation tape or duct tape, tape it around the outside to block out light and it shouldnt really effect cleaning?

 

[indyana]

Haha, thanks, but I ended up just making myself buy an opaque bin.

As an update, I am utterly in love with my dubia roaches. They haven't been breeding a ton yet, but they are very simple to keep. I had a small round of deaths when they first arrived (travel damage?), but since then, I've only found a couple dead nymphs. If you put the time/money in to make the correct setup, they indeed are simple to keep.

 

[Busterboy]

Roaches are the best! They don't smell, don't chirp, and are easier to catch lol. But I think I rather a cricket loose in the house, rather then a dubia roach. If you can contain dubia roaches, it will be a good choice. Learning how to breed dubia roaches is easy and it will save you a crap load of money. Crickets are a hassle to breed and are more expensive.

 

[Treefolk]

Dubias are still better then crickets, but I've had 200,000 dubias in the house and they do smell in quantity and the sound of millions of feet do make noise. I sold off almost the entire collection because it was far more than I ever needed. So keep your population under control, every female lays 20-35 eggs and in as little as 4 months there's 10-17 more females laying. It gets big quick.


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[CurlyFries]

If I buy 15 dubias, assuming about 50/50 male/female ratio, how long before I have to sell or get rid of excess dubias? Or have too many adults? I have only two leos..

 

[indyana]

Depends upon how warm you keep them and how large the bin that you're housing them in. You want to have a ratio of 3-5 females for every 1 male adult. Extra adult males just cause problems and eat all the food. -_- Females can produce 20-30 babies every month.

For my small colony (feeding two lizards) I try to keep 1-2 adult males and 3-5 adult females in it. Extra adults I cull by picking them out into a big ziploc bag and putting them in the freezer. I then toss them outside for wild birds.

If you want to slow the breeding, you can keep temps 70-80 F. Temps 80-90 F will encourage growth and breeding.

 

[Alceste]

The only ever negative I have ever heard of with dubia roaches is that the high protein content can cause gout. Having said that I feed my leos 3 times and week and 2/3 of those nights its dubia. And I have never seen gout.