I just received 2 pounds of XL dubia (1 1/4 - 1 3/4 inch) to feed off and give my colony a good boost. I also ordered 1 pound of this businesses "proprietary" blend dry food. He would give me no other info. I opened it and it primarily smelled like alfalfa.
I put it in with the colony and OMG...
Gonzo seemed to enjoy eating 25 - 40 nymphs tucked in a nice ootheca wrapper!!! :D
I saw the little white buggers too. I guess they were close to coming out? Maybe mom was walking weird from "labor pains"??? :)
I was cleaning out my dubia bin and noticed an adult female that was walking around all messed up. I don't usually feed off my adults, but figured, why not?
I hand fed her to Gonzo, my Panther cham and when he took his fist chomp, her egg sack thing came out. I took it and put it in the bin...
Another head scratcher came when I was cleaning my dubia colony and found a solitary earwig (EWWWWW) in the enclosure. Not sure where the hell that demon insect came from???
I assume if I leave them (or still have them after cleaning) there would be no negative effect to feeding them to my lizards??? Do you use yours for food?
I found this on a site: http://pods.dasnr.okstate.edu/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-2827/L-278web.pdf
Nothing about a symbiotic relationship, and actually suggests removing them.
Good thing I only have 8 adults to clean, should be easy enough to make sure the future generations remain mite...
I just received a few adults to start a colony hopefully. These were given to me at a pet shop that had a 10 gallon tank FILLED with them. It was pretty obvious that they NEVER clean the tank. While looking at them today I noticed what appears to be tiny mites (?) crawling around on the roaches...
The past few nights we have had A LOT of these brown beetles. They are about one inch long and capable of flight. I will try to take a pic, but never have luck posting them.
Any idea what they are by my description? And are they safe to feed off to my Cham? I am not concerned with pesticides...