Dubia Roach Colony

katyle

New Member
I have two baby panther chameleons coming my way next week from chameleons101. I was thinking that their primary food source would be dubia roaches. Is this a good primary food source? How many roaches should I get to Thanks!
Kyle
 
Welcome to the forums!

Dubia are a great choice of feeder!

but for chameleons, variety is usually the best thing possible.

Some good feeders:
Crickets-staple
Dubia & most any other roach- staple
Silk worms- Staple/treat
Horn worms- treat
Super worms - treat

of course there are many more! this is just a simple list to give you an idea. Those foods listed as treats are also nutritionally well balanced, essentially everything on this short list is good for your chameleons :).

But, just because your using good feeders, does not mean you can skimp on the gutload. a variety of feeders being fed a variety of gutloads will ensure healthy and usually problem free chameleons. Not excluding supplementation of course.

Regarding dubia strictly, they are wonderful - I have my own colony going (shout out to ChameOh ;) ). Do you want to start a colony right away? if thats so then you should start with quite a few female & male pairs (aka dozens) with a a few hundred juvis & nymphs to feed off of while you wait.

Hope this helps! and im sure people with more experience than i with the roaches will chime in as well :)

S.F
 
Welcome to the forums!

Dubia are a great choice of feeder!

but for chameleons, variety is usually the best thing possible.

Some good feeders:
Crickets-staple
Dubia & most any other roach- staple
Silk worms- Staple/treat
Horn worms- treat
Super worms - treat

of course there are many more! this is just a simple list to give you an idea. Those foods listed as treats are also nutritionally well balanced, essentially everything on this short list is good for your chameleons :).

But, just because your using good feeders, does not mean you can skimp on the gutload. a variety of feeders being fed a variety of gutloads will ensure healthy and usually problem free chameleons. Not excluding supplementation of course.

Regarding dubia strictly, they are wonderful - I have my own colony going (shout out to ChameOh ;) ). Do you want to start a colony right away? if thats so then you should start with quite a few female & male pairs (aka dozens) with a a few hundred juvis & nymphs to feed off of while you wait.

Hope this helps! and im sure people with more experience than i with the roaches will chime in as well :)

S.F

Well what I was thinking about doing was starting the colony now but I wasn't going to feed out of it yet. I read that you should wait for it to be very established. I was going to feed them crickets for the most part until the colony was established and producing well. Does this sound like the right thing to do? Also, what size container would produce the correct number of roaches that I'm looking for? (ha how many roaches will a panther eat a day?) Lastly can I powder roaches like I would powder crickets?
Thanks so much!
Kyle
 
Well what I was thinking about doing was starting the colony now but I wasn't going to feed out of it yet. I read that you should wait for it to be very established. I was going to feed them crickets for the most part until the colony was established and producing well. Does this sound like the right thing to do? Also, what size container would produce the correct number of roaches that I'm looking for? (ha how many roaches will a panther eat a day?) Lastly can I powder roaches like I would powder crickets?
Thanks so much!
Kyle

The plan of feeding crickets for the most part until the colony is producing sounds solid. You can look at the size of the nymphs and compare to an adult cricket and feed the same amount. One adult dubia to me seems to be the same mass as 3 adult crickets. Adult dubia are usually too big to feed so I would stick to the midsized nymphs for feeding and let the adults keep producing. Unlike crickets, dubias live 5 years.
They have a very good tutorial at theroachguy.com on setting up your colony including container, heat, etc...
Yes you can dust them just like crickets.
 
They have a very good tutorial at theroachguy.com on setting up your colony including container, heat, etc...


I'll second that. That's the guidelines I used when setting up my colony. They are SO much easier to breed and feed than crickets...and more nutritious.
 
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