Giant Dubia Cockroaches

[fbsmith3]

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.

 

[dmarcus]

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...

 

[Torty Mom]

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!!!!

 

[Momof4]

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.

 

[Tom]

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...

 

[fbsmith3]

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.......

 

[reneereichert]

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...

Great photo! Look at that face, love it!

 

[Tom]

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...

 

[ascott]

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.....

 

[Torty Mom]

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!

 

[fbsmith3]

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).

 

[Tom]

RE: Giant Dubai Cockroaches

She really does love them. No fear at all.

 

[ascott]

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

 

[dmmj]

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).

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.

 

[ascott]

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

 

[fbsmith3]

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.

 

[Tom]

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!"

 

[fbsmith3]

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.

 

[jbean7916]

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

 

[jackrat]

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