Dirty Egg Crates in a Dubia Roach Bin
Egg crates are the most well known style of housing for dubia roaches. Why? These create a ton of surface area for the roaches to climb! More surface area mean more dubia roaches per bin. When running a business, this is extremely important. Typically I use the egg flat which holds 30 eggs.
There are two different styles of egg flats. I utilize the paper pulp style made from recycled cardboard and paper. The crates with a “+” on the bottom of the cell (egg holding area) seem to hold up better than the ones that come to a strict point. I believe this is due to the outside edging being slightly more fortified.
UPDATE: I have found egg crates that are "extra fortified" and plan to give these a try on my next pallet purchase.
But that’s not the point of this blog. The question has arisen to me, how many times can I reuse an egg crate in my dubia bins before I should throw it out?
Does bacteria build up in dubia roach bins when the egg crates are old?
I think so, I am going to test a few bins next to each other, one with reused materials and one with fresh crates. (I do not have a microscope to count bacteria.) If the crates get moldy then the experiment will have to cease and I will be changing out the crates. I predict the bin with used crates will have more dead than the one with fresh crates. In this test I am not looking for production levels on the breeders; although I will do my best to also note this. The dubia roaches will be tested over 2 6-week cycles.
Egg crates in Dubia roach bins results.
I never got around to posting this blog earlier, although I did run my test. What I have found was egg crates had a minimal effect on the overall roach health. I did find that immediate stress from changing containers into brand new crates, caused a few to die off within the first 2-3 days. I suspect that long term this still may have some effects. I did find that there was approximately a 10% increase in production for bins with cleaner crates. I also found that while cleaning the bins, the smell and amount of dust in the air was much less when cleaning bins with cleaner egg crates.
Sample Block Quote
Praesent vestibulum congue tellus at fringilla. Curabitur vitae semper sem, eu convallis est. Cras felis nunc commodo loremous convallis vitae interdum non nisl. Maecenas ac est sit amet augue pharetra convallis nec danos.
Sample Paragraph Text
Praesent vestibulum congue tellus at fringilla. Curabitur vitae semper sem, eu convallis est. Cras felis nunc commodo eu convallis vitae interdum non nisl. Maecenas ac est sit amet augue pharetra convallis nec danos dui.
Cras suscipit quam et turpis eleifend vitae malesuada magna congue. Damus id ullamcorper neque. Sed vitae mi a mi pretium aliquet ac sed elitos. Pellentesque nulla eros accumsan quis justo at tincidunt lobortis denimes loremous. Suspendisse vestibulum lectus in lectus volutpat, ut dapibus purus pulvinar. Vestibulum sit amet auctor ipsum.
