Question about Dubia roaches

[xboxmember1978]

Well I was thinking about possibly trying them and I have a few questions before I do since I have never bought them before.

1 Do most leos love them?
2 What size is best for adult leos?
3 Best website to buy from? (U.S)

 

[yellermelon]

My geckos didnt like them........I would say outta 60+geckos 6 will eat them..Estimate.

 

[xboxmember1978]

OoO... I saw alot of people on here in the feeder forum saying the dubia was the best. I didn't know so many leo's don't like them. I wonder why everyone says they work great and are the best roaches for leo's

If my leo's did like them, does anyone know if they make a good staple diet?

 

[yellermelon]

Ive heard of alot of people having good luck..Mine are just picky annoying little geckos lol

 

[xboxmember1978]

Can anyone help answer question #2 and #3

 

[GeckoRing]

We bought them from Nicole at Sticky toe gecko. I didn't do any price shopping, we had met her at a show. As far as size, the regular rule applies. About 3/4 size of the geckos head. My Enigma now refuses to eat anything else! Many of my geckos enjoy them, though not 100%. They are much better than crickets!!
http://www.stickytoegecko.com/

 

[SFgeckos]

answers

I think with any feeder species, the earlier you expose the animal to that particular feeder, the more likely they will recongize it as "food".
I have raised several generations of leopard, fattailed and knobttailed (Nephurus) geckos on dubia roaches alone. I have also offered them to many other species of geckos including Strophurus, Diplodactylus, Uroplatus, Rhacodactylus, Eurydactylodes, Phelsuma, Goniurosaurus, Paroedura and others. When feeding them to adult or subadult animals, it can be hit or miss. But in my experience, if the animal is exposed to dubia roaches or ONLY fed dubia roaches starting from an early age- they will continue to hunt or relish them if offered.

In terms of the species that I raised solely on dubia roaches, their growth/weight gains and reproduction were on par with animals raised on more traditional feeders such as crickets/mealworms supplemented with waxworms, silkworms and pinkies. I feed out hundreds of dubia roaches a week...and the best thing about them? They are FREE! Granted, I have been raising roaches for several years now, but once you have an established colony, you will always have the right sized food item for all stages of life. I have saved hundreds, if not thousands of dollars from having to purchase live crickets from online sources or petstores. Plus the roaches are clean, odorless, soft bodied/easily digestable (nymphs), very easy to gutload and keep/breed.

If you want to try some out, pm or email me. I have several racks of roaches and probably currently have about 10,000 surplus

Jon

 

[xboxmember1978]

Thanks for responding to my thread about them. I have 3 adult geckos and I was thinking about trying them but I have been tossing the idea back and forth cause I really didn't want to spend the money on buying some and having my gecko's not eat them. The cheapest I have found them was at www.blapticadubia.com. They are $19.99 including shipping for 50 small size and they say the small size is about 1/4 to 5/8 which in my opinion is too small for adult leos but I could be wrong. I emailed the company to see if they had medium sizes and they said the small size is all they will have for a couple of months. I would really like to try them before I buy alot to make sure my leos like them.

 

[gothra]

I have 9 geckos and only 2 of them won't eat dubias. I usually feed the nymphs that are around 2 cm length; if possilbe, I try to pick out the "white" ones that had just shedded; these are VERY VERY soft, my picky eaters LOVE them! I bought mine from Olivia at bugchick.com.

 

[malt_geckos]

I haven't tried dubia...I'm thinking about getting a small amount of them for the milii and (future) amyae. They gross Matt out though so I'll be the one handling them...yucky.