Hello, Just wondering if Adult leos can/should eat adult "Dubia" (spelling?) roaches....I have been feeding my Leo and Beardies mainly crickets and superworms and was going to start breeding Superworms (mainly because even though my reptiles love crickets, I can barely tolerate the smell of crickets that I buy from a local cricket ranch, and can't imagine breeding the things.)...I had heard about the roaches for Beardies before, but figured they were too big/wrong for my leo,.... but after reading a different post on here, I am now beginning to rethink that......so again, basically, can Leos be fed the adult size Dubia Roaches as a staple food??
I think an adult dubia would be a little large for a leo, especially if your going by the space between the eyes rule because they can grow to approx. 2" in length. The beauty of breeding roaches though is size really will not be an issue once you get a colony going, and if your feeding roaches you are breeding them =). The adults you will mostly be using as breeders to keep the population going, and you may only be feeding adult males periodically to your beardies and nymphs the rest of the time to you leo and beardies. The males are very easy to tell from females as they have large wings (but cannot fly) and the females have mere stubs and tend to be thicker bodied. Female dubia will produce roughly 30 live offspring per month as they are a live-bearing species...I like to go by the rule that for every single roach you will be feeding a day, you want 2 female breeders in your colony. It takes a few months for a newborn baby nymph only measuring a fraction of an inch in length to reach full size and sexual maturity, and they will continue to live and produce offspring for you for another year to a year and a half. Typically you will buy a hundred or so mixed sized nymphs (depending on how quickly you want to get going and how many mouths you have to feed) then allow them to breed for a few months and become established before feeding heavily out of your colony; this is usually a relatively pricey investment but well worth it as it may be the last time you pay for a staple feeder ever again! After a few months, you will have almost a constant supply of roaches varying in sizes from 1/8" to 1.5" or more. You can just pick and choose the sizes you want for the particular herp your feeding at the time. So to make a long story short, dubias make a great staple for both your leo and beardies, and the size will not be an issue because there will mixed sizes available to you at any time once you have your breeding colony established and going =) Hope that helps
Thank you very much for the info....I was unaware of the length of time that it took for them to reach maturity.....after reading this (and doing some additional research on the internet for specific breeding set-ups) I think i am going to go ahead and start my own colony.....the initial cost will be literally "nothing" compared to what I would need to purchase if I just keep purchasing the superworms, crickets, and phoenix worms. Again, thank you very much for the reply... Connie
Turkistan Roaches are great for leos as well. They are non-climbing, non-flying, fast breeders, have soft bodies, and only get as big as a large cricket.
