Would it be worth it to raise mealworms? I have 2 adult geckos, 1 male, 1 pregnant female. My main concern is that it takes soo long for mealies to cycle I would need to keep buying more mealies because they would not be ready in time to feed my geckos. I was looking into raising wax worms. They seemed to be very self sufficient but they would be a terrible main food source. And super worms would be out of the question due to the low number of geckos I have and how hard it is to raise them. Should I raise mealies and wax worms is what I'm asking.
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- Thread starter Brett B
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I don't like touching the crickets or roaches, so my saving grace was the feeder tongs so now I don't have to touch any of them. Crickets stink so bad where as the roaches don't so I perfer the roaches over crickets any day. lol But I am loving the tongs
ajkry2
New Member
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- 46
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- Saint Louis, MO
oh roaches arent all that bad. shoot i was scared of crix when i first started feeding my beardie. soon enough i was running all over trying to catch the little buggers. when i vomitted from the smell because i didnt clean out the bin i was keeping them in i knew it was time for a change. i tried my hand at breeding supers while my dubia colony was getting going and i failed miserably. just had a bunch of dead beetles on my hands lol
when i opened the dubia container for the first time to actually feed out of it, those buggers barely smelled, moved slow, and were just as creepy if not less creepy then those smelly, quick jumping crix. i love my roaches. they just take some getting used to
when i opened the dubia container for the first time to actually feed out of it, those buggers barely smelled, moved slow, and were just as creepy if not less creepy then those smelly, quick jumping crix. i love my roaches. they just take some getting used to
Stl_Greaser
New Member
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- 336
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- St. Louis
the cool part about dubia is that they arent an invasive type of cocroach, like german cocroaches that you and i hate. they need over 80 deg f and high humidity to breed...
i had a massive escape plotted by my dubia, and i kept finding them belly up in all corners of the house. most of them stayed by the heat mat, and no escapes since. for dubia just order 100 more every so often so theres not too much imbreeding -- gotta make sure you have clean buggies
They do not need over 80 degrees to breed they just breed faster and thrive more at higher temps. You see them belly up because of the lack of humidity and lack of food and water source.
The inbreeding is what keeps the males from flying! I found that out the hard way when I introduced too many adults from different strains. One night sitting there and something big was flying around, and It was a 2 inch adult male Dubia. I chilled on the new adult introduction for a while and have not had that problem again! Yet!
reptilekeeper
New Member
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- 47
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- Windsor Ohio
I won't touch spiders crichets or roches. I will touch snakes, lizards, melies scorpions, and frogs.
Roaches #1
not mentioning all the pros but you can pack 10times the mass of roaches into any given space. roaches live years and when kept in low 70s can be kept within feeding size range for months easy. They can eat anything to stay alive. I once threw half a sub into my excess male dubia (3000+) bin and it was gone in about an hour, crickets would rather eat each other or die. They can gorge themselves with gut load, up to 30% of their body weight.
One big con with breeding all feeders which I have not seen addressed is Personal Protection. I know it sounds a bit odd and I could explain it as a biologist and make it sound even more odd, baisicly any inhailed dust from , roaches, crickets, meal worms or anything for that matter can eventually be picked up by your immune system as a threat. If that happens you wil have an allergic response. The best defence against this is to protect yourself with a nice fancy $30-$40 resperator from HDepot, and even latex or vynle gloves during colony manitinence.
now it is to the point with me that the roaches will leave raised whelts if they walk on my skin, and if I dont wear a resperator when I shake them out, I will have a full blown respatory attack which I need an inhailer for or a benydrill
I am not going to stop breeding roachs, I just have to get my resperator and gloves on before I touch them, and I have found other people who have become allergic to their feeders, so next time your sifting mealies, or banging out egg crates of crickets or roaches, take a look at all the dust, and remember this post.
not mentioning all the pros but you can pack 10times the mass of roaches into any given space. roaches live years and when kept in low 70s can be kept within feeding size range for months easy. They can eat anything to stay alive. I once threw half a sub into my excess male dubia (3000+) bin and it was gone in about an hour, crickets would rather eat each other or die. They can gorge themselves with gut load, up to 30% of their body weight.
One big con with breeding all feeders which I have not seen addressed is Personal Protection. I know it sounds a bit odd and I could explain it as a biologist and make it sound even more odd, baisicly any inhailed dust from , roaches, crickets, meal worms or anything for that matter can eventually be picked up by your immune system as a threat. If that happens you wil have an allergic response. The best defence against this is to protect yourself with a nice fancy $30-$40 resperator from HDepot, and even latex or vynle gloves during colony manitinence.
now it is to the point with me that the roaches will leave raised whelts if they walk on my skin, and if I dont wear a resperator when I shake them out, I will have a full blown respatory attack which I need an inhailer for or a benydrill
I am not going to stop breeding roachs, I just have to get my resperator and gloves on before I touch them, and I have found other people who have become allergic to their feeders, so next time your sifting mealies, or banging out egg crates of crickets or roaches, take a look at all the dust, and remember this post.
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