I am going to do it..

[adrouin]

After some consideration and talking to a few people on here aswell as my fiancé ( for premission ) I am going to keep a very small dubia roach colony. Seeing as they can't climb, jump, or infest my house or smell like cricket's. What is the smallest colony I can keep for one panther chameleon and still have it sustain itself. What do you recommend for heat, food, etc? Do you need a clean up crew for such a small colony?

Thank you guys for all of your help! You are truly amazing teachers of this wonderful hobby!!!

-Alek

 

[Olimpia]

You won't regret it!

I live in Florida so my "Florida room" stays fairly warm so I just put them in there, but you could get a little heating pad from any reptile pet store section. And as far as food I give them a commercial diet sometimes (something like Repashy Superload or Dinofuel, etc.) and then provide fresh fruits and veggies for moisture. They go nuts for fruit, mine seem to care very much for mango (and if roaches are capable of showing emotions I swear that mine seem excited when they realize there is mango in their bin.)

I don't know what the smallest colony would be. It may to be several dozen adults so that they produce nymphs faster than you can feed them off. You'll probably see where that number is once you have your colony for a few months. And hey, if you ever feel that you have too many you can always sell them and make a few bucks back!

 

[adrouin]

I'm not sure if this is allowed. Any ideas on where I can get a good starter colony at?

 

[jamjam]

gut load as you would crickets, but i do agree they do enjoy fruits and they will eat more than crickets. something I also find is they almost seem to go more nuts for the dry gutload i make compared to crickets too and over their wet stuff too most times

 

[crazychamzoo]

You can get 1000 from LLL Reptile for $80 and that includes shipping, not a bad price and a good start for your colony, you can divide them out, some as a breeding colony to experiment with, and some as strictly feeders. They are pretty resilient little feeders, keep longer than crickets and don't stink. Personally feel crickets should be the staple diet, but I have heard of others using the roaches as a staple diet with success.

 

[adrouin]

1000 is too much I think. I wanted to buy a few breeding pairs to start my colony. If I got 3 breeding pairs how long until I should start feeding off?

 

[spottea]

You can get a 'breeding' starter set from a lot of the dubia breeders online, for a reasonable price. That's what I did, and I'm swimming in them now!
Get a largish Rubbermaid bin, or something like that. You want it to be deep enough that youncan stand the paper egg flats on end, so that the poop, or frass falls to,the bottom. I didn't do this at first, and regretted it. Also, the deep sides will stop tham climbing out. A large bin is about $12.
Get a heating pad, as that is what will really get your colony going. I've turned mine off now, as I want to slow the breeding down.

 

[ridgebax1]

There are some great (but at times creepy, when the guy just sticks his hands into the roach mosh pit) videos on Youtube. They show you how to set up your bins and feeding stations inside the bins. I think the ones I watched were from a place called the roach hut. You can get them from several of our sponsors or even on ebay and amazon! I would start out with a couple dozens and maybe a few nymphs to see if your cham likes them. It would be a shame to get a colony going and not have an animal that will eat them. Fortunately I have a beardie who loves them!! Like I said in the other thread I use a ceramic heat emitter hanging over the bin and others use heat mats or heat tape.

 

[junglefries]

Nothing like the day it finally dawns on you what you've done. Roaches in the house! And you get the clean them. Good thing is they fetch a pretty penny. Most of mine don't eat them, I trade them for a .50 store credit each towards crickets

 

[Lpsouth1978]

I use heat tape, available from the site sponsor ABDragons, attached with foil tape to one end of the bin (on the outside). If it were me I would start with something like 10 females and 2-3 males. Then give them AT LEAST 3 months to reproduce before feeding from the colony. You want to have a female to male ratio 4 or 5:1 or you will just find that your males are all killing each other anyway. If you want to start feeding sooner, you could also order some mixed nymphs to feed from.

I personally think that Dubia are a GREAT primary food source and my chams LOVE them, however make sure you still offer a variety of feeders or they will get bored and can go on food strikes. I have a guy that has been on one for a while and just started eating again today, although he is still not eating his dubia yet. I just got him some houseflies and he WENT NUTS FOR THEM!! So far he has eaten about 60 of them today. I will feed him some more after work this evening.

 

[jamjam]

i also use ceramic heat emitters

 

[happiness]

If you shop on eBay, you can buy Dubia from there in any quantity you want for good prices too! Like 100 extra large (almost adult size) for 20-25$ shipped. I've been thinking of buying some from there since my colony is taking so long to build up.

I use a regular heating pad under my dubias. It only gets up to like 90-95F on high which is enough.