MOM GAVE ME PERMISSION!

You also only need to feed them veggies and healthy fruits that you should have on hand really, with a dry gutload you use a bit of every day or whenever you run out. (I replace mine everyday because of the size of my colony) Once you get the set up done and finish paying for all the start up colonies which if you get excess females and males at the right time from the correct people you can get them at a good price. They pay for themselves over time. I breed six of my feeders, so I technically should never run out of food. So if you are in one of those states that has horrible blizzards, you never have to worry about not having food because of being snowed in. Also I save hundreds of dollars every year. Probably more than that considering all my various reptiles not including my chameleons. I don't even want to think about if I wasn't raising my own feeders. I know when I wasn't raising anything because I had just gotten my panther and he was 4 months old, he was eating 22-24 medium sized crickets a day. I was refilling on a ridiculous amount of moneys worth of crickets at the time because I hadn't started keeping in bulk or raising my own yet. Silkworms have probably been the best investment I have ever done as far feeders besides dubias.

Edit: They don't just save you money either, if you have excess feeders you can make some nice cash off them. When you have excess silkworms or hornworms those things sell like hotcakes. At the moment I am trying to get my silkworm colony more stable. I am super excited because I finally got my South African Hybrid eggs I have been waiting forever for. It will be at least 3 months while they are in the fridge before I can hatch and breed them. I definitely want either a really strong white line going or a zebra line going to breed them with.
 
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Chameleon Crazy Chick said:
Alright, sounds good. Bribery may work on this, as it will save me money to pay for both the heating and the insect's food rather than buying all the food from the commercial petstore. :D:p
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If you can get them to understand how much more cost effective breeding them will be, maybe they will let you pay them a little extra. Kinda like "bug room and board", to cover the electricity used. Also, I know pretty well what your weather is like, because I live in PA. You may be able to get away without a heat source in three summer months. That may buy you some time to work on your parents. Just for curiosity's sake, how old are you? I give you props for how responsible you seem to be! Don't give up!
 
I have mine in a 14" long tub and for the roaches that are kept in a room temp area the heat mat is only on half of the base so it's one of the smallest mats you can buy so one of the lowest wattage, think mines 9 w so electricity costs would be a fraction compared to the cost of buying food in. Kudos to you and Good luck.
 
Thank you! I will keep that in mind, as I am convinced that this in the best option for Nik. ( and my finances!) I am almost 15, and I thank everyone who proves over and over again that just because you are young doesn't mean that you are stupid or incapable. Thanks guys!
 
So, how long do you have to have the heating pad on? Are there any specific heating pads I should get? How hot should the heating pad be? I am putting the roaches in my garage (my mom insists)..
 
Well, here in Cinci the temperatures can range..... Around 90-95 in the summer and down to -20 at the lowest in the winter. I am going to try to subtly tell my mother that I will pay for heating, since there is no way my garage can insulate that.......:confused:
 
Chameleon Crazy Chick said:
So, how long do you have to have the heating pad on? Are there any specific heating pads I should get? How hot should the heating pad be? I am putting the roaches in my garage (my mom insists)..
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It may help her come to grips with them if you call them "beetles", or just "Dubia". Roaches just sounds disturbing. That has been my aversion to them, too. And explain to her that even if one or even a few get loose in the house, they CANNOT live and colonize in your home. So no evil may Roach infestations!
 
congrats! i bet you will love him, do enough research, save up enough. and boom. my mom didnt need convincing we just went to petco so i could show her the babies that they had (seems like they always have new babies) and she was in cause she thought they were really cute.. anyways, maybe a cheap little UVB/non UVB light to heat them up, i had the same problem before. all my crickets were dying cause it was getting so col in the room. P.S. no i didnt get cooper from petco (my chameleon)
 
It is, Dubia are often referred to as six spotted roaches. If some are dead in the container you can often get the price knocked down if you are talking about petco and get several roaches for a low price. The dead ones don't even technically have to be dead, sometimes they just have to look like it because very few employees end up opening them. And trust me roaches that are kept in those containers quickly end up looking dead. But roaches are rather easy to bring back to life in the right environment and with good water sources. I always provide my roaches who are going through a rough time (sometimes when I go through my bins for a feeder or a just a check up I find some females and males who have been through the wringer) these ones get put on a fresh slice of orange and get partitioned off from the others for a few hours. I still have a female from about 6 months back whose back had been eaten away to expose some soft tissue underneath. It's rare that females get injured so severely. I assume that was when my males started to get out of control and I started feeding off adult males more often.
 
Oh awesome! I will get some today or tomorrow and try feeding him....... See if he likes 'em. They look dead as in "curled up with all their legs tucked in" dead?

I just had a great idea.

I will go to my mom and be like, hey mom. I gave up on the dubia, but there are some other beetles that are good too. They have some at petco! They have a lot of the same requirements as the dubia, but they're from the same area...... Yeah.... They're called six spotted beetles......
She'll probably be more lenient with those. :ROFLMAO:(y)
 
Usually roaches who are curled in on themselves are full out dead. Often if you bring it to the attention of a manager (since a lot of managers rely on their workers to tell them what they need every now and then and it's a poor practice to do) they will pull the completely dead ones and order fresh ones. You can always ask them to contact you when they will be in. Or ask them when they expect them in.
 
Chameleon Crazy Chick said:
Oh awesome! I will get some today or tomorrow and try feeding him....... See if he likes 'em. They look dead as in "curled up with all their legs tucked in" dead?

I just had a great idea.

I will go to my mom and be like, hey mom. I gave up on the dubia, but there are some other beetles that are good too. They have some at petco! They have a lot of the same requirements as the dubia, but they're from the same area...... Yeah.... They're called six spotted beetles......
She'll probably be more lenient with those. :ROFLMAO:(y)
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Nursemaia said that she did something similar. She called them 'Dubia beetles' instead of roaches. Brilliant!
 
Guys, I did it! I got my mom's favorite candy and gave her those, then went to the petco and got the dubia. He LOVES them. Huzzah! I was worried I would end up having to breed crickets, but this is no longer a problem. (y) I brought up the "pay for electricity" thing to my dad, and he's gonna think about it.....Oh, dad just said yes! Soon I will order all the supplies needed......

  1. Large Rubbermaid container (how large exactly?)
  2. heat pad (just confirmed. Any specific brands/heating pad recommendations?)
  3. egg cartons (not a problem)
  4. Food? (what kind? Flukers? Is there specific roach food?)
  5. Fruits/veggies (for hydration) and
  6. the actual roaches.... 5 females & 1 male?

does it sound ok to the experts?:coffee:
 
I usually don't start a roach colony with anything larger than a 25? quart or was it a 50 quart? *shrugs* I am bad with quarts. Right Now I am using a 50 gallon rubber maid bin XD

For adults you want at least 50 females and 15-20 males.
 
I don't bother buying roach food and just use leftover fruits and veggies, before they expire. Do not leave them to rot if uneaten. The fruits actually hydrate enough. A heating pad underneath it that does not turn off in 2 hrs is good to increase the temp, although Petco sells them for reptiles too. I bought 500 unsexed nymphs on eBay, so I could start feeding right away, while others got bigger and started breeding [although my 500 banded crickets from Josh's Frogs lasted almost 3 months so I waited until last month to start feeding them]. I think I used a 36 quart sterilite container and just have an old screen cover.
 
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