B.Dubia colony question??

[Terranaut]

So since I got this I have been just taking 1 out every couple days for my beardie to watch her chase it down :) much more fun than crickets or mealworms (we mix it up a bit) but I doubt I am hurting their numbers much.
My question is this or I guess its actually a few but here we go.
This is the colonys breakdown right now
20% adult dark and maybe 1/3 males
30% about the size of a quarter
30% about the size of a nickle
20% tiny tiny ones
Should I seperate them and allow seperate generations to grow together?
When I pick for feeding should I select them randomly or feed only full adults?
I have 200ish, how many a day can a colony like this afford to lose ?
I would eventualy like to become cricket free. These guys are awesome and my beardie loves them. She jumped over her rock and did a death from above on 1 today ,it was hillarious.

[Terranaut]

Bump!! Someone please give me a little knowledge here.

[bigbubbagumper6]

I've always kept all of my dubias in one container, however if you're still trying to 'establish' your colony, you should be leaving them alone as much as possible. Getting in there everyday to pull out feeders is disturbing to them and they will breed faster if given privacy and heat. Once your colony starts going you will have more dubias than your one beardie can eat, trust me. I ended up turning off the heating pad on mine to slow their breeding down because my colony got overpopulated, haha. PM me if you have anymore questions, I'm new to the site but I've been raising beardies for years. :)

[DragonsEye]

Pardon the lateness of replying -- just saw this thread thanks to bigb having bumped it up with a comment.

IME, there is not necessary for you to separate the adults from the babies. Cannibalism is not the issue with roaches that is it with crickets. (Though it can still happen if the colony is starved and they will eat their dead.) Just make sure they have plenty of hiding spaces -- though again, I find that they tend to congregate together.

The benefit to separating them is when you need feeders of different sizes. Separating sizes allows you to minimize disturbance to the entire colony as well as making it easier to catch what you want. Easiest way to do this is to remove all the oothecas every few days as they are produced and to put them in their own jar/tank/container to hatch out and grow.


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