I started with a colony of 25 adults over 3 weeks ago. Some of the females gave birth within 2 days and I now have about 10 babies now about 1/4". I'm assuming that the females were already pregnant. I have seen no new babies in the past 3 weeks. Is this normal? The temp is hovering around 90 in their plastic tub. I'm feeding cricket food, apples, oranges and carrots which are being eaten. There is plenty of egg cartons for them to hide. Are the egg sacks visible on pregnant females? Any advice would be appreciated.
need dubia breeding help
- Thread starter danmar26
- Start date
PrettyInInk87
New Member
No, gravid females give live births and "eggs sacs" are not visible. Their gestation period is about 30 days and give birth to 30 to 50 young. 90 is a good temp to keep them... Do you have any adult males with the females? If not then the females will stop producing.
If males are present, give them another week or so and you will see some more babies.
PrettyInInk87
New Member
I'd say, try and keep 1 male to every 3 or 4 females. There will be plenty of ladies to go around for the males, helps with territory issues too.
Mr Wilson
New Member
We read somewhere that it is good to stack and egg crate on top of another so they can get way out of the heat and still feel safe. We did this and it seemed to work nicely. Are you giving them any type of water to drink? We use the cricket gels and also mist them a little bit. I don't remember where I read it, but if they do not have food and water, they will begin to eat each other. Could be wrong, so if anyone has info on that, let me know haha.
PrettyInInk87
New Member
If there is a lack of protein in their diet it's when they start to eat one another. I was advised to feed boiled egg and crushed nuts for protein instead of feeding cat, fish, or dog food.
Also, when there are too many males they tend to get territorial and aggressive, then start to beat each other up. Boys...
PrettyInInk87
New Member
When adults, males have full body wings and females have short stubby wings. Also, females will reach a larger size when full grown.
AND no, it's not a silly question. 
Ricardo
New Member
temps are good at 90-s, if the male:female ratio is 1:4, than after a month you gonna get several little babies!
sexin the little roaches is easy, just look at the abdomen...here is the link:
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/feeder/329671-sexing-dubia-roaches.html
good luck!
sexin the little roaches is easy, just look at the abdomen...here is the link:
http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/feeder/329671-sexing-dubia-roaches.html
good luck!
Digby Rigby
Member
Dubia production
10 babies is very low. The colonies we sell from produce 20+ babies per each female. once they reach adulthood it takes a month for the first nymphs to pop out then they can have 20+ babies each month.
Although referred to as live bearers the eggs are in egg cases aka ootheca. At some poin the females actually eject the egg cases turn them around and shove them back inside. At that point they are retained by the female until hatching. Yes you can see egg cases sometimes partially hanging out of a female. If you see egg cases that are left without reinsertion for half hour or more they wont hatch. Stress can also cause females to abort egg cases. Egg cases can not be hatched artificially.
Blaptica dubia like to be in close contact with others. Often caging is too large for the amount of dubia they are housed in. One way to determine this is if they are all huddled together and there is a lot of empty unused space. Too much room also impacts breeding.
When you feed them if they swarm the food then they arent being fed enough and this will also affect production. Unmedicated game bird layena mash and starter mash is good for protein. It has more of the good stuff than chicken layena and starter mash.
Unless you need them in specific sizes keep nymphs of all sizes and adults together. That will make them also feel more secure. Around 50/50 male female ratio is also good.
Digby Rigby
______________________
Bulk dubia & other roaches [email protected]
10 babies is very low. The colonies we sell from produce 20+ babies per each female. once they reach adulthood it takes a month for the first nymphs to pop out then they can have 20+ babies each month.
Although referred to as live bearers the eggs are in egg cases aka ootheca. At some poin the females actually eject the egg cases turn them around and shove them back inside. At that point they are retained by the female until hatching. Yes you can see egg cases sometimes partially hanging out of a female. If you see egg cases that are left without reinsertion for half hour or more they wont hatch. Stress can also cause females to abort egg cases. Egg cases can not be hatched artificially.
Blaptica dubia like to be in close contact with others. Often caging is too large for the amount of dubia they are housed in. One way to determine this is if they are all huddled together and there is a lot of empty unused space. Too much room also impacts breeding.
When you feed them if they swarm the food then they arent being fed enough and this will also affect production. Unmedicated game bird layena mash and starter mash is good for protein. It has more of the good stuff than chicken layena and starter mash.
Unless you need them in specific sizes keep nymphs of all sizes and adults together. That will make them also feel more secure. Around 50/50 male female ratio is also good.
Digby Rigby
______________________
Bulk dubia & other roaches [email protected]
kaylie
New Member
Question about heat. Say you had two bins- one for adult breeders and nymphs, and a smaller one to set aside some nymphs to let them grow up into breeders (just to make sure you keep good male to female ratios since it's harder to tell the sex till they're older). Would the smaller bin need a heating pad too even if those were not for breeding yet, as it's just a "holding bin"?
Digby Rigby
Member
heating will help them grow faster. Since they can all be kept together the same high temps for all would be good. Unless you need specific sizes seperated it would be far better to keep them all together. When having multiple bins far more efficient to place them in a cabinet and heat the cabinet like with a ceramic heat emitter.
Digby Rigby
______________________
Bulk dubia & other roaches [email protected]
Digby Rigby
______________________
Bulk dubia & other roaches [email protected]
kaylie
New Member
The only problem keeping them all together is I probably wouldnt be good at keeping track of the ratios. Separating some to grow up would allow me to put 1:3 or 1:4 breeder ratios back in with the rest easier than going in and counting all the males and females to see if it's right and/or feeding off some I meant to keep.
It would be easier for me just to keep them all together. I was told that feeding the roaches dog food is no good for your chams. I was going to keep the adult breeders in their own colony and continue to feed dog food. I can seperate and gut load the nymphs and raise them with a better diet prior to feeding. Since adding the dog food I went from around 10 nymphs to 70+ in just 2 weeks. It's true about them staying huddled together. They don't use all of the room that's available.
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