# Overpopulated cultures?



## OverBoard (Dec 9, 2011)

So I have a quick question regarding livefood. Hopefully soon, I'll be getting my first lizard, an Ocellated skink; just the one individual. Now I would order livefood online, tubs of it as required, but the problem is I'm not in most of the week, and arranging particular delivery dates/times can be a little difficult, mostly because I'm usually only home all day on Saturday. 

And I can't rely on my local shops because they only sell crickets, locusts and mealworms - no sort of diversity at all. Not to mention I'd like to feed crickets as little as possible ('cause their noisy and smelly and last time I encountered them they kept me up all night). 

So I found myself thinking it might be best to start up a little culture of, say, dubia roaches, and then purchase other food online/from local shops whenever possible.

My only worry is that with only one lizard to keep the populations down, and the insects breeding like mad as per usual, I'd end up overcrowding the colony and being left with hundreds of roaches I didn't want and had no way to dispose of. Thoughts? Is it possible to overpopulate a culture, and is there any way of preventing it?


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## Chris18 (Mar 22, 2009)

OverBoard said:


> So I have a quick question regarding livefood. Hopefully soon, I'll be getting my first lizard, an Ocellated skink; just the one individual. Now I would order livefood online, tubs of it as required, but the problem is I'm not in most of the week, and arranging particular delivery dates/times can be a little difficult, mostly because I'm usually only home all day on Saturday.
> 
> And I can't rely on my local shops because they only sell crickets, locusts and mealworms - no sort of diversity at all. Not to mention I'd like to feed crickets as little as possible ('cause their noisy and smelly and last time I encountered them they kept me up all night).
> 
> ...


1 simple answer. Sell surplus stock. You make your money back from buying the colony quite quickly


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## OverBoard (Dec 9, 2011)

Chris18 said:


> 1 simple answer. Sell surplus stock. You make your money back from buying the colony quite quickly


Like there's anyone near me who wants to buy cockroaches! :lol2:

Although if I could find someone interested, it sounds like an awesome plan. I'll look into it. Thanks man! : victory:


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## Guest (Jan 5, 2012)

Whilst many would disagree with the ethics of this, dubia roaches are very susceptible to canibalism when moisture is limited. Therefore somebody who wanted to control colony growth could always restrict moisture...

Also feeding off females rather than males is a sure fire way of controlling population.


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## OverBoard (Dec 9, 2011)

Moonleh said:


> Whilst many would disagree with the ethics of this, dubia roaches are very susceptible to canibalism when moisture is limited. Therefore somebody who wanted to control colony growth could always restrict moisture...
> 
> Also feeding off females rather than males is a sure fire way of controlling population.


Thing is, I would assume the little 'uns would be the main targets for cannibalism by the adults, which would be a problem because it's the little guys I want for the skink; they have small mouths from what I've read and need smaller livefood.

Would it be possible for livefood to survive in the garage for a few hours until I got back from work? It would be about midday so unless it was a particularly cold day it shouldn't be _too_ cold. If so, I could just leave a note on the door telling them to leave any livefood in the garage...I especially wouldn't want them sticking it through the mailbox when I wasn't there though, as the dog would probably get to it and I'd come home to quite the mess to clean up!


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## snakeeyes21 (Nov 23, 2008)

OverBoard said:


> Like there's anyone near me who wants to buy cockroaches! :lol2:
> 
> *Although if I could find someone interested,* it sounds like an awesome plan. I'll look into it. Thanks man! : victory:


Sell the surplus on here, plenty of buyers in the food classifieds section
or even on ebay :2thumb:


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## 123dragon (Jan 15, 2011)

they would be fine in the garage, mine is left on the door step as long as there isnt snow on the ground


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## The Roach Hut (Mar 29, 2008)

You can control breeding by removing heat. We are in the middle of doing a video response to the most FQA's we get. This is one of those questions, but we have other videos that may interest you. Visit our site. Or search for us on YouTube or Facebook you can view all videos at either of these locations.

Tony


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## ExoticInsectsUK (Nov 15, 2008)

Ocellated skinks are small and dubias are large you could only feed a adult skink small ones which unless you have loads of adults breeding will be hard.
I think turks would be mush better because there smaller (babys 1mm) have softer body, move quicker to attract a skink under ground and they dont give birth to live roaches like dubia and lay egg sacs so you could move them to a cold place to slow down hatching or kill them off if not needed.
There easy to keep and breed and would be suited to baby and adult skinks:2thumb:


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