# Dubai Roaches



## Will5 (Apr 15, 2007)

Are these the dream livefood a lot of sites are making them out to be? What are your thoughts on them? How easy are they to breed? Any thoughts at all on these good or bad will help. Thanks Will


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## rachy (Nov 18, 2006)

They are really good , mine are in a rub with a heat mat , they breed like mad! My beardies n leos love them!


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## herp boy (May 4, 2007)

still waiting on mine from ebay :bash:


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## Brat (Oct 7, 2007)

They scare me half to death but they don't fly, jump or climb which is great.
My beardies go mad for them and they breed very fast so I give the baby dubias to some of my Leo's who also seem to like them.


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## fantapants (Jan 4, 2008)

we have lobster roaches and will be getting some dubias in the future. our food bill has been halved since we got the lobster colony and they just sit in a big RUB in the airing cupboard. almost zero maintenance. we feed them every day and harvest approx 40 a week of different sizes to feed the cwds, beardys and leos. They ALL love them!


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## LauraMartin (Apr 15, 2008)

dream come true! they cant fly, jump or climb, so very easy to contain. They breed quick if they are given heat and a dark container. once u have a colony u will have sizes ranging from 1cm right up to 2inches, so can feed all your animals. i only have a beardie and 2 salamanders but they all love them. i just have mine on top of the viv where the heat lamp is, so they have a hot area and a cool one. they eat almost any veg, cricket pellets, dry dog/cat food. u dont need to give water as they eat orange and lettuce etc. and because no water, no mould and no smell. i am totally over the moon with mine, i hate crickets and find they are hard to maintain and to clean out. these roaches are so easy , they hardly need cleaning but when they do, just lift up the egg carton and they will be clinging to it, and stuck like glue, so u just lift the egg carton and give the box/tank a quick clean. i use a large plastic box, like a storage box for about £3 from B&Q, taped black bin bag to sides and drilled lots and lots of holes in the lid to let moisture escape.

anyway yeah... im blabbing. they are great. and in my opinion much less creepier than crickets and locusts, all my life i been scared of bugs and tonight i even stroked an adult roach. they are quite cute :lol2:


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## Siman (Apr 12, 2008)

Taken from ricks live food.co.uk

*Dubia Roaches x 100 Starter Culture Sale! Only small available *


*Price: **£23.00* (including 17.5 % tax)

A roach that is slow moving and easy to handle from 5-55mm. Very high protein content and ideal for a vast range of reptiles and amphibians. Beardies go nuts for them! One of the most popular roaches due to their ease of handling. Good for difficult feeders! 

So are they that good then? How many would you feed to say... a 4 month old beardie? and Leo's approx. 8 months? 

The beardie is on size 4 locusts (approx. 5 a day) and the Leos are only eating about 5 small meal worms a day (Their choice, there are more in the food tubs)


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## Schip (Mar 31, 2007)

With the animals you've got I'd do the lobster roaches as they're smaller and mature quicker, both leo's and beardeds love them, breed quicker than the dubia too. You would just need to put a band of vaseline around the top of their container to keep them in as they can climb glass. 

If you take a look at my add large roach colony for sale, you'll see the lobsters climbing the glass on the bottom 2 pics to give you an idea of size etc. I have them on a heat mat, porridge oats on the floor and use fruit for fluids and feed with the oats, left over uncooked veg and tropical fish food, keep them in the dark and crowded they go great guns.


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## andie (Sep 23, 2007)

Both species are really good but i prefer Dubias as they dont have the ability to climb smooth surfaces, and they can do tricks look at my avatar
lol


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## Schip (Mar 31, 2007)

Lobsters do the same lol, being nosey now who's your schippy breeder? I breed and show them so know all the breeders here at least within the club.


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## andie (Sep 23, 2007)

schippy ??? sorry whats that :blush:


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## Siman (Apr 12, 2008)

Schip said:


> Lobsters do the same lol, being nosey now who's your schippy breeder? I breed and show them so know all the breeders here at least within the club.


Think that was for me? lol.

If you do mean my schipperke like i think you do then my uncle


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## Schip (Mar 31, 2007)

Yeah the schipperke lol, who's your uncle then?


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## andie (Sep 23, 2007)

Sorry, just googled it, nice looking dog and ive never heard of them before.


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## Siman (Apr 12, 2008)

Schip said:


> Yeah the schipperke lol, who's your uncle then?


Colin Coleman


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## Siman (Apr 12, 2008)

andie said:


> Sorry, just googled it, nice looking dog and ive never heard of them before.


Cheers! he's a crazy little bugger and howls at music and starting to be almost any TV noise ... little git lol


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## Schip (Mar 31, 2007)

Oh I know Colin and Dave they had Kassalmak Quartz off me then sent him back when mother had cancer so showed him made him up and sent him to Bernard Fears in New Zealand where he's now a champion over there too.

Ch/NZ Ch Kassalmak Quartz at Colholomeran 








Ch/Am/Int'l Ch Kassalmak dakota at shellkirma (centre)
Ch Kassalmak Warrior (left side son of above and half brother to Quartz) Quartz on the righthand side taken 04 when did the Crufts big win, Warrior BOB and Quartz Res BD









Sorry for hijacking the thread lol.


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## moonlight (Jun 30, 2007)

The are great apart from mine *do climb* and if they are slow I would hate to see how fast the fast ones move lol. As long as you keep them warm and feed them they breed like wildfire!


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## stoolpigeon (Apr 23, 2008)

*roaches*



Brat said:


> They scare me half to death but they don't fly, jump or climb which is great.
> My beardies go mad for them and they breed very fast so I give the baby dubias to some of my Leo's who also seem to like them.


hi, just thought i,d let you know that they do have the ability to jump
if you,d call it that lol they sort of spring out of your hand but its very 
rare to see it but mine have done it mainly the males , and yes they are
very easy to breed and cater for i waited on mine to breed ages but it 
was worth the wait ive loads of them now good luck,


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## Brat (Oct 7, 2007)

stoolpigeon said:


> hi, just thought i,d let you know that they do have the ability to jump
> if you,d call it that lol they sort of spring out of your hand but its very
> rare to see it but mine have done it mainly the males , and yes they are
> very easy to breed and cater for i waited on mine to breed ages but it
> was worth the wait ive loads of them now good luck,


Oh god don't tell me that!!
Mine don't get the opportunity to go anywhere near my hand lol, I pick them up with 12 inch tweezers


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## stoolpigeon (Apr 23, 2008)

*dubias*

lol lol when it happened to me i thought i was seeing things 
but dont worry about them lol it only happened a few times
since ive had them and thats ages 
there well worth keeping,, very good grub,


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## piehunter (Jul 10, 2007)

Are they easy to grab with tweezers? i just could'nt touch them, so it would have to be tweezers. I had an adult hissing roach once but you just could not pick it up with tweezers, they used to slide down the armour on its back.....ewwwwwww horrid creature


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## Carlie (Sep 27, 2006)

I've recently been given about 15 of these guys by my vet to start my own colony. Mr Frilly Billy has the onset gum disease, apparently attributed to the fact that he hasn't had enough 'chewy' foods, and the vet has advised introducing these roaches in to his diet. 

However, I was also advised that they are very fattening and that I should only give him a few a week. If this the case, then I'd be worried to hear of anybody using them as an exclusive food source. 

Unfortunately, I still have to buy all the nasties as well - crickets, meal/super worms / locusts, etc., but what I wouldn't give for these roaches to be the complete package! They are indeed ace in many ways and I find it hard to sacrifice any of them.

Yes, the buggers do jump, they're not _that _slow and they can certainly climb out of cricket tubs, but aside from that, they're very well behaved, they don't smell or make much of a mess and they don't really fuss when you move them about.


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## Schip (Mar 31, 2007)

I've feed all my beardeds babies included on roaches rather than crickets and no mealworms, without problems an adult dubia is a larger meal than an adult cricket so they ate less of them but grew just as well without getting fat.


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## It's corny but.. (Feb 7, 2007)

yeah theyre not fatty..


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## LauraMartin (Apr 15, 2008)

Carli, are u sure its dubias u have and not lobsters or another roach kind? because in my experience dubias do not jump or climb at all. they certainly cant even stand up against the smooth plastic tub never mind climb it. 

and i have heard the opposite of them being fattening, read many care sheets saying they are very nutritious and can be used as a staple diet, although i still have crickets and locusts too to mix it up.


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## Brat (Oct 7, 2007)

They're great as a staple food.. Expensive to start off with but get a colony going and in the end you become self sufficient therefore spend less.
Unfortunately only two of my beardies like the roaches so I'm still buying Locusts for Shenzi lol.. D'oh


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## andie (Sep 23, 2007)

Mine will only eat lobsters, damned annoying when ive got 1000's of Dubias :devil: But yea Laura is right about them climbing, the best ive seen is a baby Dubia scrambling up the silicon at the sides of a viv.And yea there fine as a staple food but variety is the spice ....


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## Carlie (Sep 27, 2006)

LauraMartin said:


> Carli, are u sure its dubias u have and not lobsters or another roach kind? because in my experience dubias do not jump or climb at all. they certainly cant even stand up against the smooth plastic tub never mind climb it.
> 
> and i have heard the opposite of them being fattening, read many care sheets saying they are very nutritious and can be used as a staple diet, although i still have crickets and locusts too to mix it up.


We're talking about these guys, aren't we? If so, then definitely Dubias. 










Up until a couple of weeks ago I'd never even seen one and I know very little about them aside from what my vet has said. And, yep, I've had one have a go at jumping (male), though they are mostly very placid and well behaved. The tub one of them climbed up had air holes in, so there would have been places for foot holds, rather than it having the ability to climb up glass like locusts can. They're very good at sticking to kitchen paper though. 

I hear / read conflicting information regarding food every day, so it's hard to know what to believe. The vet I use is a specialist reptile vet, whom I've been going to for the last 10 years. He's very thorough and isn't adversed to handing out a telling off if he thinks you're not doing things right. 

I'll ask again exactly what he thinks of these roaches and his recommendations for feeding. They keep and breed them at the practice, so they must hold them in high enough regard, but if he still thinks they're not good as a staple food source, I'll ask him to explain why so I can pass the info on. 

I would more than love for them to be good enough to be fed regularly rather than other creepy crawlies.


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