Dubia roach questions

[bishop]

I have a 2x2x4 cage and am regularly feeding my female panther loaded/dusted crickets. I tend to add a few crickets each day/every other day and let them roam around for her to hunt (the cup approach seems nice but I’d rather have her be “wild”) - and she’s one very happy and healthy girl.

I am wondering if I can do the same with these small roaches. Will they climb around as crickets do, and would having several of them roaming inside the cage create any potential issues (either for her or her staple food source)?

 

[JacksJill]

They are nocturnal so when your cham is active they tend to hunker down in a dark corner of the cage. You need to put them in a feeder with other feeders to move them around or put them on a branch at feeding time to get any action out of them. I mostly hand feed mine.

 

[bishop]

Do they have a tendency to fall off branches, or do they stay put and wander?

If it’s the latter, it would seem that free-ranging them inside the cage could work.

I want my girl to hunt/work for her food.

 

[JacksJill]

They will wander just long enough to find a dark spot to hide. Crickets are better for hunting.
If you think of them as a fishing lure you would say they don't have good action. They are shiny in bright light but don't wiggle or scurry as much as crickets. It would be worth it to add some to her diet but keep crickets for the enrichment that hunting them provides.
She may not take to them at all a lot of panthers don't eat them once they are done growing. Try a dozen from a mom & pop pet store or online and see.
Don't jump into starting a colony.

 

[bishop]

Sounds like a great idea. I’ll fix a short cup against a branch from them to climb out and see what happens.

I usually keep the cage stocked with several fat crickets, and has ignored the super worms that I had in a cup.

Probably has enough to eat such that she can be picky. It’s always a temptation to add, but I’m going to abstain from adding bugs to her cage tomorrow so she hunts down the rest if hungry (they won’t be terribly hard to find) and then will fast of Saturday and be ravenous on Sunday.

(I’ll put a superworm in a cup during her fasting day to see what happens.)

 

[CJ's Exotics]

Sounds like a great idea. I’ll fix a short cup against a branch from them to climb out and see what happens.

I usually keep the cage stocked with several fat crickets, and has ignored the super worms that I had in a cup.

Probably has enough to eat such that she can be picky. It’s always a temptation to add, but I’m going to abstain from adding bugs to her cage tomorrow so she hunts down the rest if hungry (they won’t be terribly hard to find) and then will fast of Saturday and be ravenous on Sunday.

(I’ll put a superworm in a cup during her fasting day to see what happens.)

By the way, full throttle feeders has some cool feeder cups if you are lazy to make you rown like me!

 

[bishop]

I like making my own. Rather than a cup, I might try for a trough of some sort, or something with a bend..

 

[NickTide]

Like Jacksjill said, they don't trigger much of a response. My panthers (5 months old) liked them until 2 weeks ago One won't eat them at all, the other will eat a few but not like she did before.

What I am saying is if you were to put 5 a day in the cage for 10 days, you may very well have 45 to 50 of them still hiding in the decor. If they aren't eaten right away, they wont get eaten.

Some thought for you...

Orange heads are a bit more active.
Green banana roaches are a lot more active.... All roaches hide.

Nick Barta (full throttle feeders) and Andee both offer stick insects and I have purchased bugs from both and recommend either. sticks are a bit pricey to feed off and take a long time to colonize (eggs take months to hatch), but once you did you would have a very good feeder that stays in the foliage. They are easy to care for but I havn't gotten any eggs yet.

Blue Bottle flies will be devoured by the chams as well and don't hide. Buy them as larvae when you start seeing flies, feed them off and put the rest into the fridge until you want more flies. They are $6 for 250 at rainbowmealworms.com. I didn't get very many to turn to flies but I think that was on me. I am ordering more next week.

starting in march or so you can get this years mantis ooths. I havn't used them yet but they should work well for allowing to roam the cage.

 

[Franquixote]

The roaches will not wander around at all, any that aren't eaten immediately will hide until they die or escape.
My panther won't eat them from a cup usually, but he will take them off a branch if I position them nearby. I try to get him to eat at least 2 dubia and 3 orange heads a day along with crickets, hornworms, waxworms, silks, and a snail a month.

 

[Amee97]

My female chameleon likes dubia roaches and she will eat them out of a cup but my male chameleon doesn't! In my experience the dubia's just hide like others above are stating. Cup feeding them to cham should work but every cham is different . I end up finding more live ones when I do my weekly cleaning rounds then what I remember giving to her lol. But both of my chameleons love blue bottle flies!

 

[CJ's Exotics]

I recommend using dubia's if you are hand feeding or monitoring when you are not using a feeder cup, they are a pain when they hide. I fed my guy some dubia's about a week ago, and by the end of the day, they were gone, so I thought he ate them. But some showed up a week later at night, roaming the cage. Just my 2 cents.

 

[bishop]

thanks all (especially CJ).

i’m not sure i’m about to install a feeding cup, as i like my girl to hunt for her food. she’s been eating superworms crawling around the bottom lately. i don’t want to let her eat too many of them, but am glad that she’s getting some variety.

as far as dubia roaches go, do they tend to climb? leilu frequently and very actively hunts at a lower branch - especially as i’m training towards this feeding spot.

 

[bishop]

to add, i try not to overfeed her, even though i provide a bunch of crickets in her labrynth of a cage for her to hunt as she pleases. she does seem to have mastered her habitat though, averaging around 4-6 medium crickets per day, with around 2 superworms/day as of late..

saw her eat a bit of bark off a branch today as well, which was worrisome. going to give her lots of water/humidity tomorrow and hope she poops out the remnants of her hefty meals from today. usually she poops 1-3 “poops”.

 

[CJ's Exotics]

thanks all (especially CJ).

i’m not sure i’m about to install a feeding cup, as i like my girl to hunt for her food. she’s been eating superworms crawling around the bottom lately. i don’t want to let her eat too many of them, but am glad that she’s getting some variety.

as far as dubia roaches go, do they tend to climb? leilu frequently and very actively hunts at a lower branch - especially as i’m training towards this feeding spot.

Do they climb, they can climb screen, but glass, I don't think they ca, unless they is some inconsistencies on the glass or plastic.

 

[nick barta]

Sounds like a great idea. I’ll fix a short cup against a branch from them to climb out and see what happens.

I usually keep the cage stocked with several fat crickets, and has ignored the super worms that I had in a cup.

Probably has enough to eat such that she can be picky. It’s always a temptation to add, but I’m going to abstain from adding bugs to her cage tomorrow so she hunts down the rest if hungry (they won’t be terribly hard to find) and then will fast of Saturday and be ravenous on Sunday.

(I’ll put a superworm in a cup during her fasting day to see what happens.)

Super worms are best hung on the screen in a position under the chameleon, they will climb up and catch the chams attention.