which is best?

[bdevillier19]

i am getting tired of crickets already. i have 14 geckos to feed and i am thinking of raising my own feeders. what i want to know is which is better for the geckos and which is easier to maintain. dubias or mealies? and please post reasons behind your decisions if you could.

 

[fl_orchidslave]

I hate crickets too! I was planning to switch to mealies in addition to the supers mine have been on. I started a superworm breeding project a couple months ago. Many have said mealies were easy to breed so I thought I would do that too. Since now we are over-run with supers of different sizes and the kids prefer them to mealies, I have abandoned the idea of breeding mealies also. I have 1000 on hand and refrigerating to slow them down and make them last to get hatchlings started feeding. We haven't tried dubias, tho they were considered until the reality of escapees was mentioned. There are no escapees with worms! The reason I started using supers in the first place was because I have other animals that like them too. Also, they can be quite adequately dusted in Rephashy's supplement. We can pick up 100 crickets at a show for a treat lol.

 

[thegeckoguy23]

It is all prfrence i use the roachs every ones in a while but i like to use/breed meal worms.

 

[Stl_Greaser]

Some people will just not vote for Dubia because of the gross out factor. This thread seems to be about which is the more nutritious for the Geckos. Not which everyone likes to use the most. I have used both extesnivly and geckos raised on Dubia grow at much faster rates and grow to be much larger. There is never a foul smell and there is no substrate to change out. Just remove roaches and dumb waste every 6 months or so, and add food and water crystals every few days. My girl friend bought a sickly skinny gecko (6.5 inches and only 24 grams) and with in two weeks and a half week on Dubia she was up to 44 grams! They have a much better meat to shell ratio to Meal Worms also.

So my vote is for Dubia roaches.

 

[Northstar Herp]

Some people will just not vote for Dubia because of the gross out factor. This thread seems to be about which is the more nutritious for the Geckos. Not which everyone likes to use the most. I have used both extesnivly and geckos raised on Dubia grow at much faster rates and grow to be much larger. There is never a foul smell and there is no substrate to change out. Just remove roaches and dumb waste every 6 months or so, and add food and water crystals every few days. My girl friend bought a sickly skinny gecko (6.5 inches and only 24 grams) and with in two weeks and a half week on Dubia she was up to 44 grams! They have a much better meat to shell ratio to Meal Worms also.

So my vote is for Dubia roaches.

I'm in for roaches too, for mostly the same reasons.

 

[NRG]

Dubia here.

 

[Stl_Greaser]

Some cold hard facts to go along with my choice!

Sample-------------Moisture------Protein-----Fat---------Fiber-------Ash

B. Laterallis----------63.63%------36.5%-----5.31%------2.19%------1.95%

B. Dubia-------------61.18%------35.6%-----6.75%------3.25%------2.01%

Meal worms----------58.74%------21.0%----15.52%------2.01%------1.18%

Crickets--------------71.96%------18.5%----6.26%-------2.09%------1.29%

 

[bdevillier19]

thanks for the info brian. that was what i was looking for. the gross out factor doesnt matter to me. i'm more concered for the well being and health of my investments. and from the sounds of it dubia are easier to raise.

any suggestions on how many to start with? should i buy just adults, or a mix?

 

[Tony C]

Roaches are the way to go, I culture lateralis, and just ordered starter colonies of lobsters and dubia. My goal is to be cricket free by the end of the year.

 

[Northstar Herp]

Roaches are the way to go, I culture lateralis, and just ordered starter colonies of lobsters and dubia. My goal is to be cricket free by the end of the year.

I'm just starting with the dubias too. How many did you get for a starter colony?

And from the looks of it, most everybody may be cricket free pretty soon.

 

[Tony C]

I'm just starting with the dubias too. How many did you get for a starter colony?

20 adult pairs and 250 mixed nymphs.

And from the looks of it, most everybody may be cricket free pretty soon.

CrPV isn't going to give us much of a choice in the matter...

 

[bdevillier19]

so if i purchased 20 adult pairs and 250 mixed, how long till i'd be cricket free? and correct me if i'm wrong but it sounds like you dont need to feed as many dubia as you do crickets per feeding?

 

[Tony C]

so if i purchased 20 adult pairs and 250 mixed, how long till i'd be cricket free? and correct me if i'm wrong but it sounds like you dont need to feed as many dubia as you do crickets per feeding?

I'm not sure, but I should be able to do most of my feeding out of my lateralis colony until the dubia get going. Dubia are much meatier than crickets, I have seen quite a few people say that 1-3 dubia fill their geckos up.

 

[bdevillier19]

sweet so for 14 mouths at lets say 3 per day? so that would be 42. not bad. better than 5+ crickets per day per gecko. it seems on crickets they are always hungry. but when i feed mealies they seemed more satisfied.

 

[fuzzylogix]

i just started a dubia colony myself about a month ago and its exploding already. i thought about lats, but when my wife saw them at a show she about freaked out. the dubias move slower, cant climb or fly, and seem to breed just as fast as the lats. i started out with 500 mixed and ended up with about 50 m/f adult pairs. they are much easier to sex and easy to cull out if you end up with too many males. right now im not feeding out of my colony until it really gets going, but i already have large super and mealie colonies that im feeding out of. i plan on continuing to feed all my leos a mix of dubia, supers, and mealies just to keep them interested.

 

[Stl_Greaser]

thanks for the info brian. that was what i was looking for. the gross out factor doesnt matter to me. i'm more concered for the well being and health of my investments. and from the sounds of it dubia are easier to raise.

any suggestions on how many to start with? should i buy just adults, or a mix?

Buy as many as you can afford from the get go, and add to them when you can to get them going quicker. If you are going to feed 14 geckos you will need about 100 adult females and 20 to 35 adult males to keep the colony sustained. That will be good for 3000 babies a month while you will feed off 1200 to 2100 a month that will leave you with enough to grow out to new adults. You will want to start with a good mix of sizes so you can feed some to all of your geckos right off the bat to see if they are interested. Be careful, some geckos will never eat a cricket again after tasting Dubia!

 

[LzzrdBoy]

I understand the roaches may provide more in the form of nutrition for our Leos but as far as my Wife was concerned they weren't an option. lol So, I started up a mealie colony. I read much here about how simple it was so I thought I'd give it a shot. That was 6 months ago. As of today I've got more than 2500 ready-to-eat mealies, around 200 or so beetles and 60 or so pupae. Each day upon arriving home from work I find 10+ newly popped beetles and the cycle just keeps on churnin' 'em out.

Although I only have a single Leo I share my harvest with 3 of my neighbors. Two have birdies and the other, various small reptiles.

On a humorous note... My Daughter (7) loves to help me with the daily maint. of the colony. So much so that she told her Teacher all about it. When her Teacher found out we essentially had a perfect example of the "life cycle" at home, she asked if I could come in and present to the class. So, I did, of course! The class loved hearing, and seeing all about the larvae, pupae, beetles, and the way it all worked. Neo (My Leo) was the cherry in the whipped cream as he made an appearance at the end of my presentation. He was very happy to help out by showing all the kids where the larvae end up. LOL! Good times and quite educational too!

So, Mealies get my vote!

 

[Blacksupra94]

Mealworms are easier if you are afraid of roaches lol but there is no argument that the Dubias are more nutritious and healthier for your leo. I once fed my girl about 20 over the course of two weeks and she loved them. They are great because they move quite a bit but don't fly or jump and are too big to go into that crack in the corner of the cage where it's impossible to get them out LOL

 

[ReptileWorld]

Brian said it best. i support is way because that my self is how i did it. but dont just get adults get mixed also because as the adults die off the younger nymphs will take their place as they mature. you want to get a nice cycle going.

plus roaches are way easier to breed then worms because the roaches require no special treatment.

 

[AZdale]

Just to add my two cents. I actually have both. I am running a mealworm colony that started with about 400 beetles. I do like them because I am getting tons and tons of babies.

I also started a dubbia colony. I started with 50 because I wanted to start small, then added 20 large nymphs to up the amount.

I find both are relatively easy. I have one of those small drawer bins that I put the babies in and a slightly larger bins for the beetles. All I do is throw some carrots in each bin every few days. Once every other week I pull the substrate out of the beetle bin and put it in a drawer.

I am currently tracking all my worms to see how long it takes for them to grow.

My over all plan is to set aside new mealworms to pupate each month and feed off the beetles to my beardies or leos each month and rotate in new beetles.

At the same time I have the roach colony that I sort once and month and feed on the same days as my mealworms. I find having both means I will never have to buy feeders and my animals get a bit of variety.

If I get overwhelm I can just sell them off on craigslist or give them to friends with reptiles. Since I am planning on expanding my leo collection and start a crested gecko terrarium, I am not worried about having too many.

Worse case scenario I can feed the mealies to my cichlids.

If I were you, I would try a small group of both and see what you seem to like better, but I do agree that nutrition wise dubia are better.

Also I use cornmeal and whole wheat flour as substrate, and a strainer to pull out mealworms. It is super easy.