i want to start a colony but want to know the cheapest place to get them from. i have 10 leopard geckos to feed and 2 baby bearded dragons so how many do i need to start a colony that is enough for them but not toooooo many

thank!

I have B Dubia and P Zebra in the same colony and have found that the Dubia took a good 12mths to get going enough to feed my 2 adult beardies, a trio of curly tails and a trio of Eyed lizards.

If you don't mind waiting a while for them to establish then go for the Dubia otherwise go for the P Zebra they just seem to get on with it very quickly where as the Dubia need time and colony size to feel comfortable enough to breed. I started my Zebra's 'Red Runners' with 300 and breeding was going within 2 wks and they don't climb glass or grow as large as the Dubia.

really? so p zebra cant climb or fly and dont smell and there much faster breeding??

where can i get them from cheaply??

just looked them up and someone said they reproduce too quickly? what do you think> will i be over run with them? i mean how to you get rid of them if you have too many?

Hi Monkeygirl. I can't speak for Red runners, but I understand that they are smaller than B.Dubia. They may be ok for geckos but to small or beardies.

I keep B.Dubia and use them to feed beardies. They love them. For your collection i'd recomend having about 60-80 breeding females with 3 females per male. The nymphs would take about 3 months to reach a decent feeding size for adult beardies. I got my colony as small nymphs in August last year. I got my first new nymphs in March and they should mature into adults in a month or so.

There are a few people selling them. I got mine from a guy on http://reptileclassifieds.co.uk/. I have seen a few others on ebay and other places on the web.

One word of advise. I'd get your colony from 3 or 4 separate sources to make sure you have a good genetic mix so you dont get inbreeding problems.

Duzzie

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Busybee's and my collection
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P zebra's grow well and do grow large enough to feed beardies mine love them lol. They are easy to control as they don't do livebirth so if you feel the colony is getting too large u just take the egg sac's out they look like rabbit droppings.

As far as I'm aware most supplies in the UK are from a few initial importers so genetic diversity is limited.

These are the guys I got mine from
djmesser@ntlworld.com
rickeezee@supanet.com

I stand corrected. I'm afraid I know very little about red runners as I dont keep them.

You are probably right there but at least by using several sources you make the most of the gene pool available. I have some from Germany so hopefully i'll get a good genetic mix. I wouldn't restrict yourself to the UK. It is relatively easy to bring them in from any where in Europe. Outside of Europe is more tricky.

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Busybee's and my collection
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Its like my dogs you go looking all over the place think you've found a new bloodline only to discover someone else has already used them here, need pedigrees for everything these days. The guy I got my original start up stock from brought his from Germany too and has imported a few from other sources I understand.

I prefer the Dubia but have to laugh at the Zebra's coz the males are such beautiful winged sandy coloured creatures for about a day until the female thugs come along and chew their wings to bits, they're like butch aliens big and black high on their legs compared to the delicate males.