Goliathus egg laying setup

C

canheaton

Egg
Hey guy's! 

     So my first time around breeding goliathus I went with the deep substrate method for egg laying (peat/rotting oak mix) bottom 6 inches I compacted very tight and the had about 5 inches of loose on top of that. Also a big chunk of rotting oak between the hard and soft layers. That method worked great and I got a lot of eggs but im wondering if I really need to go through all that trouble?

  So my question is, can I still get the same egg production with 3 inches of substrate like some have pointed out to be adequate?  Or would i most likely get less eggs with a shallower substrate since the female might not find it ideal. I'm sure less substrate also increases the risk of cannibalism amongst the hatched larvae and also more risk of unintentional damage to eggs from the female digging around in a smaller amount of substrate. 

     It would really make it much simpler to set up and look for eggs with much less substrate.    :)

Thanks for any shared thoughts! 

Caton 

 
I used a 6.5L plastic storage bin and filled it with just flake soil. Got around 80 eggs from separate intervals using this method and it's much easier to take out the eggs since its such a small storage bin. Also, I didn't notice any damage from the eggs since I checked it every 2 weeks. Good luck with breeding!

 
Oh wow! Thanks for sharing. I need to make some flake soil at some point since it would expensive to fill many enclosure's with it. 

 
hello123 said:
I used a 6.5L plastic storage bin and filled it with just flake soil. Got around 80 eggs from separate intervals using this method and it's much easier to take out the eggs since its such a small storage bin. Also, I didn't notice any damage from the eggs since I checked it every 2 weeks. Good luck with breeding!
Click to expand...
Was that with goliathus ?

 
Hey, I know I'm a little late to this party, but I recently had similar questions and figured I'd chime in. I had been having trouble with a female and getting her the right set up, but she started laying and will be laying her 105th egg this go around. I found that while you absolutely can still get eggs in shallow substrate boxes (the first three dozen were laid in four inches of substrate while I waited for flake to finish), it doesn't even come close to comparing with deep boxes full of substrate the female can compact. After checking in with several guys I know who have more experience with goliaths, they all said to aim for around eight inches or deeper for the females to be laying as many eggs as she can. I never put her in deeper than seven inches of straight flake and she did swimmingly.  So while you can definitely see results in shallow substrate, if you want to see large numbers of eggs, definitely go deeper. I also experimented with 100% peat before the flake, and I found that it was less compressible for the female, so she didn't lay many eggs in it. You may find the opposite, but just something to consider too. One final piece, if you do go for as deep as you can get it, try to leave only an inch or two between the surface of the soil and the lid of the container. It helps keep the female focused on egg laying, instead of trying to escape or scratching at the sides of the container. 

 
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