And I wouldnt have it any other way, baby!!

Lobster roach bin, egg crates removed:

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg239/Varanus99/003-2.jpg

Lobsters doin' what they do:

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg239/Varanus99/005.jpg
Dubia roach bin:

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg239/Varanus99/002-3.jpg

Dubia! Betcha cant eat just one!

http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg239/Varanus99/004-1.jpg


I am a huge fan of roaches as a food source. Very easy to keep, no smell, no noise and they are meaty. I also raise some crickets but the bulk of my food is roaches. Everybody loves them.

Cant stand mealworms. Icky. They creep me out, LOL!

I am attempting a super worm colony as we speak and its not going well. I think Im spoiled by the roaches.

Roaches! The other white meat!

Sorry had to say it...

Now is a really wicked site. I had me some roaches lined up from Shrap but they cooked on the way down. I need a little colony for my leos.

Yeah, roaches are sweet to keep. I have a small group of Gigant Cave Roaches here but it would be a pity to feed them, anyway they are actually bigger than my gecko ;)

They're that big? damn lets see some pics..

Ive never heard of the Giant Cave Roach. Sounds ominous.

And here I thought hissers were big.

Ok, here you go:

http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/9094/blaberusgp7.jpg
This is a smaller adult male. He's about 7cm (2.8") long.


http://img390.imageshack.us/img390/1356/nymphzb9.jpg
Sadly, I don't have any full grown females yet. She is going to be about 9cm (3.5") large and will have gold wings like the male.


http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/1831/undersidecd7.jpg
The perfect pet for upcoming Halloween :D Adults will have black and yellow stipes on their body but they just won't do portaits ;)

Now THAT is a roach!

I'm just starting a colony ot Dubias. Any advise?

Keep'em warm. They do best if kept at 85- 90 degrees or so. They will survive at lower temps but they will eat more and breed more if kept toasty. That's my biggest tip.

They will eat just about anything. I feed mine ground high quality dry cat food and high protein baby cereal. I also offer fresh greens and fruit daily. I dont use any sponges or anything for water they get their water from the veggies. Plus I mist them every so often. I dont like water dishes or sponges because they just turn into a bacteria buffet.

I keep mine in a big rubbermaid with lots of egg carton flats and no substrate. Just a bare bottom. Makes it easy to clean.

Dont hit your colony too hard too early. Give it a couple months to establish and you will have it forever. But if you wipe out too many females too early you could crash it. Of course, a lot depends on how many you are starting with.

I like to keep my boys pretty clean. Once a month what Ill do is shake out all the egg crates so all the junk (roach poo, shed skins, lost legs, whatever) falls to the bottom of the bin. Then I tip the bin and shake all the goodies to one end. I put the crates back on the other end and leave it alone for a while. The roaches will freak while you do this but they will return to hiding pronto. Once they are out of the way just use a little sweepy and remove the debris. Done. Takes all of 2 minutes once the gang is out of the way. Since I have lobsters as well as Dubia and Im a scaredy cat of accidentally getting a few babies in the trash I take the little bag of roach debris and freeze it. Yeah Im silly like that but that will kill any stowaways you might accidentally sweep up. The Dubias I dont worry about too much. The lobsters are hardcore and I dont want to be responsible for unleashing them on this country even if Im 99.9% sure they cant survive up north. Better safe than sorry.

Its really very easy. I mean lets face it, they are roaches! Nearly impossible to kill and reproduce like crazy. The Dubia arent quite as prolific as some of the climbing species but thats like saying a tornado isnt quite as destructive as an earthquake.

The most common problems:

My roaches arent breeding!!- Too cold. Definitely. Heat'em.

My roaches die off during molts!!- Too dry. Raise the humidity a little.

This is rare, but Ive heard of certain species of roaches who will attempt to eat one another especially freshly molted brethren if the protein is too low. Ive never seen either species bother each other but if you see them dining on one another they need more protein.

And the good news. They dont make noise, they dont smell even if you slack on cleaning and they dont drown in a droplet of water :)

Happy Roaching! Welcome to the Dark Side! Muhahahahaha!!! We will assimilate you all eventually. Do not resist. We are coming for you. Yeah, that means you too Larry! LOL!

Dubia's are the way to go. I still keep a colony going for the tokays and the breeder gargs and cresteds. They will fill a container quick once they get rolling.

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/ChandlerReptiles/Insects/dubia6.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/ChandlerReptiles/Insects/dubia2.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l37/ChandlerReptiles/Insects/dubia1.jpg

well thanks to jeff (jchandler) I now have a full colony of roaches going here at my house1

With mine when I did have them. I did end up with some eating each other. I just raised the protein, and it stopped. I ordered 5 males and 5 females when I started mine. Id say within 6 month to a year I had over 1000 adults. They say to keep them dark and warm. I kept heat lamps on mine, but I kept them in a 55gal tank. With some egg cartons. One thing to watch is if they stop producing babies. Or it slows way down. You need to order Some more males and females. I was told the inbreeding things isn't that big of a deal. But in older colonies they just don't produce as much with all the inbreeding going on. Easy fix just order a some new males and females and throw them in.

I too never had to water mine. I fed fresh fruits mine like apples and oranges. I would also put in a dish of ground up dry dog food. Here is where I bought mine from. http://www.blaberus.com They have tons of other types of roaches too.

I got my original colony from a buddy in Harold Chappman and they were breeding right out of the box, had some nasty experiences with lobster roaches and my dead heads were taking to long to start producing so I took the leap into the dubia and haven't looked back.

At first I was mixing up some crazy food, high protein dog and cat food mixed with whey protein from the health food store and was keeping the floor temp over 100 degrees. They thrived for me so I cut back on the heat because they were just going non stop but I found out that once they are rolling keeping them just above 80 degrees they were producing almost as much.

I now have them on a high quality dog food only (nutro brand what the dogs eat) and occasionally I will feed them out of the garden in the summer but for the most part they don't get anything.

For water I started and still use a polymer crystal from an ebay store. I bought a 2lb batch almost 2 years ago and still have about 1/4 of a pound of the stuff left. Just mix it up a small amount in an air tight container and just dish it out as they run out.
http://stores.ebay.com/JERSEY-MARKET_Water-Absorbing-Crystals_W0QQfsubZ2

I haven't seen any ill effects of using that to water them with but I do follow one rule of keeping their food far away from the water supply, with the humidity and the high temps that food will go rancid almost the minute that gel gets into it (it was bad with the powdered whey protein because it was so dry that it seemed to soak up any moisture in the air).

To keep the ones that do figure out how to climb in the containers I keep a small strip of foil tape around the top. So far as I know I have had no escaped roaches from it...they are stupid roaches that don't run with the lights like some of the others so I found that if you do get any out of cages they don't go to far at least for me.

thats some cool pictures

Thanks for all the advise. The room they are in runs from 77 to 81. Is that warm enough?

It's a little on the cool side. They will survive, they will probably breed but you will get a lot more action if you get them up to 90-95. There's a couple ways to do this.

You can use flexwatt heat tape. Place a 3" or 4" strip running down the center of your bin. You can use it on glass or plastic. Of course it will need to be wired and you will need some type of control device to dial it down so it doesnt get too hot. Either a thermostat or rheostat. Id go for the rheostat since its much cheaper and we're not going for exact temperatures here. You just dont want to let it run wide open.

If you dont like that idea you can use a regular human heating pad set to low. You can find these in any drugstore. Just place it under the bin.

Reptile heat mats are not recommended for plastic. So if you're using something like a big Rubbermaid not a good idea. If you're using a glass tank than have at it. Again, you may need to dial it down so you dont cook your roaches.

If you are using a screen top you can use a regular light bulb. Just use a red bulb as roaches hate bright light. And never, never feed them after midnight :D

Or, and this is bushleague style, if you have radiators in your house you can try placing the bin close...not ON...but close to the heat source. Yeah its not perfect but we're not trying to be precise. Somewhere between 85-95 is just about right. And if it climbs to 100 or drops to 75 it wont kill them. If it dips under 70 they will not breed, will slow down and may start dying off though.

Varanus, it is apparent that you are well versed in many areas of herpetoculture and have much information to offer to us here. Now all you need to do is learn to use the autofocus feature on your camera and you'll be set... :P

Thanks for all your roach info. If I ever get another largish lizard I would plan to start breeding Dubias and this will be a great thread to refer to for advice.

Thanks

You caught me. I cant take a picture to save my life. Guilty.

But good news. I have smashed the old camera against a wall. I am in the market for a new digital camera. Any suggestions? Idiot proof would be nice :D

Varanus99

Thanks for all the good info. I will try an under the tank heater to get the temps up.

Thanks

You caught me. I cant take a picture to save my life. Guilty.

But good news. I have smashed the old camera against a wall. I am in the market for a new digital camera. Any suggestions? Idiot proof would be nice :D

I'm ditching my old fuji for a fancy canon rebel next month with all the belles and whistles but for some reason I don't think it is going to be as user friendly as my old fuji....

I learned the more you spend, the less user friendly. I have a Nikon D80, and 4 lenses. The camera is smarter than me. If you want user friendly get a quality point & shoot camera.