Dubia Starter Colony vs Buying Adults

[Pi11ow]

I’m looking to start a Dubia colony and there is a place a couple hours from me that sells a starter colony of 5 males and 15 females for 20 dollars. But they also sell 100 adults for 12 dollars. No, I don’t NEED 100 but thought it’d be nice to compare colonies placed in different areas of the house. For science. Also I’m in East TN and am leaning toward this seller because of shipping and weather. Are any of our resident bug purveyors in my area? My question being is there a difference in adults vs breeder colony starter adults other than having the exact correct ratio of 3/1 female/male?

 

[Tony_S]

I'm guessing that since the 100 adults are cheaper than the 20 colony adults is that the 100 are all males. Most people feed or sell off the males since you don't need many to keep the colonies going.

 

[Kristen Wilkins]

I’m looking to start a Dubia colony and there is a place a couple hours from me that sells a starter colony of 5 males and 15 females for 20 dollars. But they also sell 100 adults for 12 dollars. No, I don’t NEED 100 but thought it’d be nice to compare colonies placed in different areas of the house. For science. Also I’m in East TN and am leaning toward this seller because of shipping and weather. Are any of our resident bug purveyors in my area? My question being is there a difference in adults vs breeder colony starter adults other than having the exact correct ratio of 3/1 female/male?

[USER=2783]@jamest0o0 /USER] is the bug king here .

 

[Han0915]

I've had multiple colonies in the past, and recently started up a brand new one from a starter colony I purchased online that contained 10 females, 4 males, and 150 ish mixed nymphs. Personally, I've had better luck breeding dubias that already feel like they're apart of a colony, and having different sized nymphs can help them get acclimated quicker and make them feel like it's a real colony right off the bat. If you just have males/females only, it will probably take a while to see any babies anytime soon. Even if they are pregnant when they arrive, females will sometimes drop their egg sac if they get too stressed/don't feel secured in their new home, and it can take time to get pregnant again in a new place. It took my new colony 2 months of just letting them be to finally start seeing babies, and now I'm at the point of being overrun with hundreds of unneeded nymphs that need to be sold off lol. Also, odds are they will send you brand new females so they have little chances of being pregnant when you receive them, which goes the same for the 100 adults if that does include females as well (though for that price, it sounds like it's just 100 feeder males. Females typically average $0.75-$1 each alone).

I would ask if they could throw in 150 mixed sized nymphs with the 1st offer and you'll be set as long as you give them some time to acclimate. My old colonies from a few years back were in the thousands, and they were non-stop producing or years. However, once I made the mistake of overselling my stock to where I just kept large nymphs/adults and basically went baby-less and lots of dropped egg sacs for a month or two. I really do believe that it was due to there not being baby nymphs/mixed aged nymphs around to I guess make it feel like a true colony, and in return that pissed off the females for a while lol. Ended up selling my entire colony off since my beardie refused to even eat them, and at that point I was just the local roach dealer breeding and selling them to people who needed them LOL.

 

[Kaizen]

I’m looking to start a Dubia colony and there is a place a couple hours from me that sells a starter colony of 5 males and 15 females for 20 dollars. But they also sell 100 adults for 12 dollars. No, I don’t NEED 100 but thought it’d be nice to compare colonies placed in different areas of the house. For science. Also I’m in East TN and am leaning toward this seller because of shipping and weather. Are any of our resident bug purveyors in my area? My question being is there a difference in adults vs breeder colony starter adults other than having the exact correct ratio of 3/1 female/male?

@jamest0o0 is who you want to talk to here.

 

[Pi11ow]

Thanks @Han0915 great info and makes sense! @Kaizen Ive already slid into his DMs, good looking out!