# Giant Dubia Cockroaches



## fbsmith3 (Oct 13, 2011)

Has anyone ever used Dubai Cockroaches?

I went to a reptile expo and the salesman convinced me on using Dubai Cockroaches as food for my boxie. She loves live food and I occasionally offer night crawlers and crickets. I always feel bad feeding crickets, my son loves them.

I hate cockroaches, I had an apartment infested and to this day, I hate the thought of them. 

He sold me on Dubai cockraoches:
-They are easy to keep, 
-Can not survive outside their habitat, if they escaped, they die. 
- They are a great food source.
-They do not make cricket noises.
-They do not stink like cricket breeding.
-They are Cockroaches, who can feel sorry for them.

Well, I only feed live food to Cleo every other day. Cleo likes a pattern, live food one day and plant matter on second day. if I feed plants on live food day she will not eat until something moving is offered.

Although they are huge cockroaches, they don't move fast, they don't bite and being so large they look a lot like preying mantis.

Does anyone else feed live food and feel terrible?
Does anyone else "keep" Dubai Cockroaches?

I grew up a guilty Catholic, my wife is Buddhist and she turned me into a guilty Buddhist.


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## dmarcus (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

I know Tom raises the large Cockroaches, but not sure if he uses them as food, I am sure he will reply to this thread...


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## Torty Mom (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

No way, not me!!! The only thing I can stomach to give to my boxie is meal worms and night crawlers and even at that, I can't watch him eat them, it makes my tummy flip flop!!! You are very brave!!!!


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## Momof4 (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

I used to raise them for my bearded dragons. It's so easy. I have pics if you want them. I had thousands. They breed so fast.


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## Tom (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

They are dubia roaches. Blaptica dubia.

Great food source. To what your seller told you, I would add: 1. They have a higher meat to shell ratio. 2. Better Ca : Ph ratio. 3. They don't all just suddenly die off for no good reason.

And they are certainly NOT a giant in the pet cockroach world. They would be a medium sized roach at best. Here's a giant roach. Meet Archimandrita tesselata and my daughter Ava:






BTW, Blaptica dubia is her favorite roach species and she'll happily tell you so. She'll also tell you how to tell the boys from the girls...


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

Well, for days I thought I had Hissing Roaches, then my 6 year old son went on the computer and showed me they were Dubia Roaches. He will not touch them, he still loves his silly blue horned worms (another Reptile Expo purchase), wich he will not allow me to feed to my Cleo, he'll be sad when they all die or mysteriously dissapear.......


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## reneereichert (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*



Tom said:


> They are dubia roaches. Blaptica dubia.
> 
> Great food source. To what your seller told you, I would add: 1. They have a higher meat to shell ratio. 2. Better Ca : Ph ratio. 3. They don't all just suddenly die off for no good reason.
> 
> ...


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## Tom (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

Sorry for my behavior here, but I have OCD...

Its d-u-b-i-a. Not dubai.

(doo-bee-a) not (doo-bye)

Love you all. Can't help myself...


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## ascott (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

When I was young I watched Creepshow...ever since then I can not handle more than one of the waterbug roaches running across the porch at any given time or I am a hopping, running, big ole idiot...but can not stop myself LOL.....I think that when I was young I had bad experiences when I lived in Los Angeles and the damn German roaches....nasty, stinky, icky, gross.....iiiiiccccckkkkk....

I won't be feeding any roaches to the RFs....nope.

But thanks fbsmith for the nightmares later tonight.....


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## Torty Mom (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

I so would have croaked if that was my little girl! YIKES!!!! She is very brave and I think it's great that she is not afraid of them!


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

I work a rotating nights shift, I have tonight off, my family is asleep, I've been drinking, I'm seldomely drink, my automated spell check has malfunctioned. 

DUBIA cockaroaches are still too sweet to feed to my sweet Boxie.

Sorry, I need a Moderator to fix the thread title. Anyone who is interested would be misdirected by my fauz pas (that's french, I misspell in two languages).


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## Tom (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

She really does love them. No fear at all.


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## ascott (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

Tom...your daughter is adorable....I love to see children (especially little girls when bugs are involved) with that intent look and focus in their eyes....I am a bug grabber as well (as long as not a roach or black widow--of course ) and when I worked at the Park I would offer field trips for the elementary grade kids, and during walking trail trips we would run into tons of critters and I am especially partial to "stink bugs" and had reached down into a pile of them so that this little girl could hold one, well she took it and it was in her hand, she spun around to show the little boy behind her and that thing went flying off of her hand and landed and held on the little boy....well, that little boy screamed like a grown woman (likely scarred for the rest of his life, poor baby) and every child cleared in a circle around that little bug like it was a crime scene...I was in uniform and had to hold in the laugh only a child can create....so as to assist this young man...but after those children left I was in my office and it all flashed across my mind and I laughed sooooo hard.... terribly I know


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## dmmj (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*



fbsmith3 said:


> I work a rotating nights shift, I have tonight off, my family is asleep, I've been drinking, I'm seldomely drink, my automated spell check has malfunctioned.
> 
> DUBIA cockaroaches are still too sweet to feed to my sweet Boxie.
> 
> Sorry, I need a Moderator to fix the thread title. Anyone who is interested would be misdirected by my fauz pas (that's french, I misspell in two languages).


It took me a few minutes to figure it out,but I used my moderator powers (for good this time) to fix it
I hope.


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## ascott (Oct 13, 2011)

fbsmith....I always wanted to know how that was spelled in french....LOL


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 13, 2011)

*RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches*

Sorry for the delay; You collect cockroaches?

My wife would have me outside, the Dubia were bad enough, she kept asking me to throw them outside until I showed her they are lazy and can not climb anything.

Is there a Cockroach collector forum?

From this forum, I know how to properly "house" my 23+ year old Box turtle and boy has she changed.

Now I need a forum to properly house my Dubia Cockroaches, so they can live in proper comfort before they are put into my own personal Roman Coliseum.

Also Dubia is not in my computer or phones dictionary until now.


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## Tom (Oct 13, 2011)

Way to go Captain Awesome! Now I can sleep tonight...

Yes fb, I do. I was up to 18 species at one time, but it got to be too much maintenance all the time so I cut it way down. They are neat animals, very useful and very easy to keep and breed. Now I have around 15,000 dubia, 3000 hissers, 2000 lateralis, and a few dozen lobsters.

Go to roachforum.com and tell them Roachman26 says "HI!"


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 13, 2011)

Ok I have joined roachforum.com, if the members are half as nice as Tortoiseforums members I will be so happy. My wife might not bee so happy.

Thanks "dmmj" "Captain Awesome" for correcting my faux pas.


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## jbean7916 (Oct 14, 2011)

I keep dubia roaches for my beardies. I can take some pics of my set up and post them when I get home. I keep mine in a large rubbermaid tub with a screen top and egg crates for them to house in. I feed high protein chicken feed and use water crystals. We clean once a month or so and just let them do their thing. I do need to set up a second tub for some males, they are over running my colony and they are a waste of resources


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## jackrat (Oct 14, 2011)

Man! You folks have me wanting to get some roaches.


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## ascott (Oct 14, 2011)

I can only think.....where's my shoe?


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## blafiriravt (Oct 14, 2011)

They are so giant and huge and AWESOME      I wouldn't mind collecting them myself. I would first have to get a divorce, and probably have to move states due to restraining order restrictions. When my wife and I first started dating, I had two flat rock scorps, and an emperor. She STILL has nightmares about em


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## Momof4 (Oct 14, 2011)

Here's my 1st tub. They really aren't creepy. It did take me a few days to get used to them.


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 14, 2011)

Where do you get those extra large egg holders. If I knew I was going to do this I would have eaten more eggs and kept the old egg cartons.


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## Momof4 (Oct 14, 2011)

fbsmith3 said:


> Where do you get those extra large egg holders. If I knew I was going to do this I would have eaten more eggs and kept the old egg cartons.


My friend used to buy his eggs from some farm. You can use regular egg crates. The best part about these is you only have to clean the tub out like every 6mo or so.


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## Tom (Oct 14, 2011)

ascott said:


> I can only think.....where's my shoe?



Yeah. Buy 1000 crickets and have them all keel over dead overnight for no reason leaving nothing for your hungry babies to eat...

THEN tell me about your shoe...


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## ascott (Oct 15, 2011)

that was insensitive of me, I apologize.


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 15, 2011)

I checked on Cleo's swimming water dish and noticed she used it as a toilet and wanted it cleaned. When I picked up the swimming dish, I found the large Dudia cockroach I had fed her yesterday. Nealy jumped out of my skin, I swear Cleo looked at me like, "You found it you can have it, I'm full now". When I don't expect to see them, my fear instict is rather strong. Weird thing is I do not have the fear instict of any snake.


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## ascott (Oct 15, 2011)

LOL...especially the narrative on behalf of Cleo


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## fbsmith3 (Oct 15, 2011)

She is quite the character, waits until I give her clean water, then poops in it, sometimes doesn't even wait until I secure it.

If I don't feed her on time she pushes her food dish against the wall. Although, I've never seen her do it, but boy do I hear it. Someday I have to mount a camera and see how she uses the food dish to make so much noise.


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## ascott (Oct 15, 2011)

very funny


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