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Dubia Roaches - Blaptica dubia.
The actual feeding and maintenance applies to feeder sps. of Blaberus (craniifer, discoidalis etc).
Pros and Cons:-
+Dubia roaches are one of, if not the, easiest roaches to culture and feed with.
+They are livebearers and therefore breeding is a self contained no fuss process.
+They require very little care or maintenance.
+These roaches are relatively slow, terrible at climbing, don’t jump or fly (except a poor sputter or two).
-Dubias are generally a good sized meal for many reptiles, Blaberus species might be preferred for reptiles in need of larger foods however.
-They are very slow to culture in comparison to other available species, but once started are no problem.
-These roaches do best kept at quite high temps compared to room temperature.
Temperature and Humidity:-
These breed and thrive best at ~30C or even as high as 32C. And again, don’t need any additional humidity unless you experience losses from shedding issues. While humidity isn’t a threat to these roaches as it is for crickets, it will encourage mould, fungus and bad smells.
Foods:-
Fresh foods are slices of apple, orange, carrot, potato and leafy greens. Dried pelleted foods should be 30% protein for greatest productivity for your colony.
The container is best bare bottomed with only dried pellets on it, fresh foods should be offered on top of egg crate to prevent raising the humidity. As with the other care guides, the food I’ve chosen is based on cleanliness, most other foods will go soggy and encourage flies.
General maintenance:-
Around every 6 months you may want to filter the colony into a clean container and clear out the frass, bodies etc at the bottom.
A weekly check for dead bodies and missed food is a good idea.
A brilliant guide to separating sizes can be found here;
http://www.theroachguy.com/caresheet.htm
Breeding:-
No effort necessary! Just keep your colony well fed with plenty of protein, good high temps and feed out the males to try and reach a 1:7 ratio of males to females. Females produce ootheca which they carry in a pouch in the abdomen until they are ready to hatch, you’ll often find females looking guilty before running off and revealing a new bunch of up to 30 babies.
Discarded ootheca will not hatch and can just be binned or left as additional food for others.
A small scale colony;
![]()
A colony of thousands only needs this much space and this much food every other day;
![]()
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/JerseyLotte/insects/dubias.jpg
![]()
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/JerseyLotte/insects/dubia.jpgAnd Blaberus roaches kept much the same way but with a bark chip substrate;
![]()
All Images and Text Copyright © Charlotte Goble 2009
The actual feeding and maintenance applies to feeder sps. of Blaberus (craniifer, discoidalis etc).
Pros and Cons:-
+Dubia roaches are one of, if not the, easiest roaches to culture and feed with.
+They are livebearers and therefore breeding is a self contained no fuss process.
+They require very little care or maintenance.
+These roaches are relatively slow, terrible at climbing, don’t jump or fly (except a poor sputter or two).
-Dubias are generally a good sized meal for many reptiles, Blaberus species might be preferred for reptiles in need of larger foods however.
-They are very slow to culture in comparison to other available species, but once started are no problem.
-These roaches do best kept at quite high temps compared to room temperature.
Temperature and Humidity:-
These breed and thrive best at ~30C or even as high as 32C. And again, don’t need any additional humidity unless you experience losses from shedding issues. While humidity isn’t a threat to these roaches as it is for crickets, it will encourage mould, fungus and bad smells.
Foods:-
Fresh foods are slices of apple, orange, carrot, potato and leafy greens. Dried pelleted foods should be 30% protein for greatest productivity for your colony.
The container is best bare bottomed with only dried pellets on it, fresh foods should be offered on top of egg crate to prevent raising the humidity. As with the other care guides, the food I’ve chosen is based on cleanliness, most other foods will go soggy and encourage flies.
General maintenance:-
Around every 6 months you may want to filter the colony into a clean container and clear out the frass, bodies etc at the bottom.
A weekly check for dead bodies and missed food is a good idea.
A brilliant guide to separating sizes can be found here;
http://www.theroachguy.com/caresheet.htm
Breeding:-
No effort necessary! Just keep your colony well fed with plenty of protein, good high temps and feed out the males to try and reach a 1:7 ratio of males to females. Females produce ootheca which they carry in a pouch in the abdomen until they are ready to hatch, you’ll often find females looking guilty before running off and revealing a new bunch of up to 30 babies.
Discarded ootheca will not hatch and can just be binned or left as additional food for others.
A small scale colony;
A colony of thousands only needs this much space and this much food every other day;
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/JerseyLotte/insects/dubias.jpg
http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/JerseyLotte/insects/dubia.jpgAnd Blaberus roaches kept much the same way but with a bark chip substrate;
All Images and Text Copyright © Charlotte Goble 2009
