# Dubia Roaches Breeding



## nicolepaigee (Jan 5, 2018)

Hi. Can someone tell me how you make a Dubia breeding tub (forgot the name of it) colony or somethjng?? As my baby beardie loves medium sized roaches and It’s costing me a fortune... like £15/£20 a week so I thought I’d start doing what everyone else does... what do I need to do etc?


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## daysocks (Nov 25, 2016)

Hi Nicole

Dubia roaches are really, really easy to breed, but as you're looking to feed off you will have to supplement the colony for 3/4 months until they're properly established.

You will need:
A cheap storage tub from Argos/Wilko/etc ideally 90+ litre (I got mine for £3 from Wilko, bargain)
A heat mat and stat
Egg crates

Drill plenty of holes in the lid and top of the the tub
Fill the tub with cardboard egg trays
Set your heat mat to get 33C in the tub

This is your setup pretty much done! A food dish is useful for keeping the egg trays dry and clean though.

Get a starter colony off ebay. You want approx a 1:3 ratio of adult males to females, approximately 15 or 20 should do it. Getting a range of ages will help your colony establish. Adults will start breeding generally immediately. Females gestate 15-40 babies for 4-6 weeks, said babies take about 8 months to grow to adult size and by that point your colony is pretty much self-populating as long as you keep a few adults around. Colonies are generally quite clean compared to other feeders, so you shouldn't have to clean them out too often, just keep an eye out for mould or damp.

I feed mine a combo of orange, carrots, green leafy veggies, grains etc - I basically chuck in my leftover bits of fruit & veg and they seem happy enough


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## Blackmelo (Jan 12, 2009)

good advice above. Their staple diet should be porridge oats supplemented with protein and kitchen scraps.
No lid needed really, as long as it is 90l none will be able to climb out. I think the 80l tubs from poundstretcher are the best roach tubs availbale atm.
The lid can be opened half way which is great.

They will breed between 24 and 30 degrees c but ideal temp is 28. You need at least 50 roaches for them to start breeding and where most people go wrong is not providing any water. A few thousand roaches can and will drink more water than a cat. Yes you can get away with not providing them this moisture, they will survive but they sure won't breed as much.

But you can't use a water dish, the roaches would all drown in it so you need to use wet toilet paper and keep it wet.


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