***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[mjgigax]

Yes the freezer was me, I'm still working the "bugs"

out of the plan, and making the crate layers for them to live on. Both require the same amount of heat, much below 65 is deadly, 85-95 is optimal.

Ksane, that set up looks good. You may have some issues w/ the wire pulling through the crates when your colony gets bigger, the weight on the crates is pretty heavy when they are full of "exotic beetles"

Vaccuming the substrate may prove difficult as the babies tend to live in it, they all prefer having some substrate to burrow into (all ages). All the sites talk about not using any substrate for them, but I have found a couple of inches of sand works very well, helps control the odor you may get w/ a large colony, gives more place for the young to hide, and helps keep you from squashing them under the weight of the crates when you move them around. Good idea about the paper towel roll for harvesting, but that way you would have to harvest whatever size is on the roll, I tend to selectively harvest (excess males, all dead ones, then large sub adults trying to pick mostly male if possible) You will definately want to selective harvest at least until your colony is to a good size w/ plenty of adult females.

Sounds so tempting but i am not a cockroach fan. My birds would love them. Maybe you bug growers would be willing to sell some?

 

[old*cowboy]

To breed they both need around 85-90 degrees. But just to hang out & grow both breeds need above 70. You could always put the breeders in tub somewhere warm or use a heating pad and then keep the males and babies too young to be sexed in the freezer above 70 degrees. People keep a ratio of 1 male to 5-10 females and feed the males. Dubia are the best and fastest breeders (which is what Kass has) and they don't climb or fly. They get several inches, too. Pretty big for a bug. To clean you could always glue or tie the egg flats together and then just lift them (the bugs stay stuck to them), sweep everything to one end and scoop it up with a small broom and dustpan and dump it in a bucket. If there were any stragglers you could just dig them out of the bucket and toss them back in the freezer. Dubia love to be crowded. You could literally keep around 1000 of them in just a 14 gal rubbermaid tub. If you had a freezer full you'd have to buy more birds to eat all the bugs lol

I got lots of chickens.

 

[old*cowboy]

One cup is for water crystals, I'm not sure what she has in the other probably either dry cat food or fruits/veggies. That is their diet. I have experimented w/ feeding them boiled or poached eggs, that is going very well, but I can't find any info if that has enough of the non veggie nutrition that they need to replace the cat food w/ it entirely. (I don't have to buy eggs unlike the cat food.)

Do you feed table scrapes?

 

[jcatblum]

Jarvis do you have pic of brooder? Any other details? Size?

 

[old*cowboy]

Yes the freezer was me, I'm still working the "bugs"

out of the plan, and making the crate layers for them to live on. Both require the same amount of heat, much below 65 is deadly, 85-95 is optimal.

Ksane, that set up looks good. You may have some issues w/ the wire pulling through the crates when your colony gets bigger, the weight on the crates is pretty heavy when they are full of "exotic beetles"

Do you think if I put a small light bulb (would experment with wattage like brooder) it would work to keep them comfortable, or would the constant light bother them. That is assuming that it doest go off when the lid is shut.

 

[ruralmom]

Hello Okies from Colorado. I wanted to find out if anyone has ordered an incubator from one of your locals. Place is called customincubators.com? Real nice kid answered all my questions and they are reasonable priced and just wanted to see if anyone out there has gotten a bator from them and if the quality was good. Thanks

 

[jcatblum]

Hello Okies from Colorado. I wanted to find out if anyone has ordered an incubator from one of your locals. Place is called customincubators.com? Real nice kid answered all my questions and they are reasonable priced and just wanted to see if anyone out there has gotten a bator from them and if the quality was good. Thanks

Cowboy is that where you purchased that incubator last yr?

 

[Cjarvis]

Jarvis do you have pic of brooder? Any other details? Size?

It is a regular brower metal brooder roughly 2ft wide, 3 ft deep and about 14 inches tall. It has new heating element, wafer and switch all in very good working order just cutting back to 6 brooders instead of 7. I have the front and side mount waterers and feeders for the brooder as well.

 

[Cjarvis]

Carl, I have what I think is a strange, out of my Brown/Red oe's, I have a stange chick! I don't know what to call it other than a sport, can that be?

That is entirely possible. Where did you get your brown reds? not all Brown reds are the same and often the ones being shown are actually a cross breed that will not breed true.
Can you send me a pic of that chick as well as the breeders and teh other chicks.

 

[Ksane]

Yes the freezer was me, I'm still working the "bugs"

out of the plan, and making the crate layers for them to live on. Both require the same amount of heat, much below 65 is deadly, 85-95 is optimal.
Ksane, that set up looks good. You may have some issues w/ the wire pulling through the crates when your colony gets bigger, the weight on the crates is pretty heavy when they are full of "exotic beetles"

Vaccuming the substrate may prove difficult as the babies tend to live in it, they all prefer having some substrate to burrow into (all ages). All the sites talk about not using any substrate for them, but I have found a couple of inches of sand works very well, helps control the odor you may get w/ a large colony, gives more place for the young to hide, and helps keep you from squashing them under the weight of the crates when you move them around. Good idea about the paper towel roll for harvesting, but that way you would have to harvest whatever size is on the roll, I tend to selectively harvest (excess males, all dead ones, then large sub adults trying to pick mostly male if possible) You will definately want to selective harvest at least until your colony is to a good size w/ plenty of adult females.

I hadn't even thought of the weight. I may have to get ahold of them at both ends to lift. Sand makes sense. I've got several different sized strainers so I could assign one of them as the "bug sifter" so I don't toss out any babies. I don't know about Dubia babies but these Hisser babies are about 1/4" and pretty easy to see.

Is it really that easy to have those bugs? I had planned to use a fish tank with a screened top, it use to be set up for lizzards......
what's in the cups?? Where is the papertowel roll?

I know, I had no idea it was this easy all this time when Kass talked about it! Once you're set up there's really nothing to do but toss in food. Some people don't even clean the bottom but every 6 months if that. I was going to use a fish tank but couldn't find my screen for the top and didn't want to buy another one, but that'd be perfect. The Dubia don't climb or jump so you wouldn't have any worries at all about them getting loose and the screen would give really good ventilation. I forgot to put the paper towel rolls in before I took the picture, but I laid them just right on top of the egg flats.
Forgot to add-the cups have those water crystals that swell up huge when they're wet plus catfood and algae tablets in the other. You can feed about anything. You can gut load them and supposedly whatever you feed stays in their stomach 72 hrs.

Do you think if I put a small light bulb (would experment with wattage like brooder) it would work to keep them comfortable, or would the constant light bother them. That is assuming that it doest go off when the lid is shut.

Oh my. You all are just full of puns today lol! I've seen people use light bulbs. You can use a red bulb, I've seen them anywhere from 25-60 watt. I've even got a red 100 watt spotlight bulb come to think of it.