Protruding Dubia Ootheca Pictures

[wst0209a]

I went to look in on my dubia to see if they needed some food soon and as soon as I opened the lid I saw a female on top of the egg cartons. Just thought I would share these pics that I just took. Anyone else see this before? Let make sure I got this right, The female first extrudes her egg case to air dry the outer shell of the eggs and then retracts back into her body where it continues to develope and then later she will give live birth. Is that right?

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

From Breeding Food Animals: All cockroach females lay their eggs not singly but in double rows, densely packed inside an egg capsule. They are ovoviviparous, the egg sac is not deposited but remains in the female's body until shortly before the little ones hatch. If the egg sack (ootheca) is visible, then it is just being formed, which can take several hours. The finished egg sac is maneuvered back into the body, into a special compartment of the uterus (a breeding pouch), with the help of appendages on the 8th and 9th abdominal segments. If the female expels the fresh cocoon, which can happen under stress, the embryos will not develop.

Hope this helps explain.

 

[lonomac]

Yep. Ive seen it a few times but for some reason no nymphs yet. Sure does take a while to build a colony.

 

[Chameleons Northwest]

Yep. Ive seen it a few times but for some reason no nymphs yet. Sure does take a while to build a colony.

The warmer you keep them the faster they develop. At 73-77F nymphs take 6 months to reach their last molt, at 82-89F they take 6 1/2-9 1/2 weeks. About 6 weeks later they are sexually mature. Females hatch out about 15-30 nymphs. Females kept at 73-77F produce eggs every 7-8 weeks. At higher temperatures I guess they might produce eggs faster.

So, right, doing the math, it seems that at even the high temps, it's about 4 months before the nymphs reach the age where they start producing young. Things really start rolling after 4 months, and you've pretty much established the colony.

 

[wst0209a]

I use a heating pad underneath of the container. It is under half of the container allowing there to be a cool side as well. I sent the heating pad on low and it brings the temperature up to about 88F. I have had one female have babies so far. The other females just grew up to start breeding. Can be to crowded with other dubia roaches be stressful to the female? Is it better to have them all close together or to place more egg crates in there allowing them to be more spread out. Right now I have two egg crates in the container. I put one on each side of the container, so it covers the whole bottom. They all hide inside the egg crates on the very bottom pretty close together and some are on top of the egg crates. Should I provide more egg crates that are standing in an upright position to allow more space for them?

 

[royden]

Ah - this is a bad pairing, isn't it? High maintance husbandry, chameleon keepers, given a box of low maintance husbandry insects. When I got my colony from Dr. Wheelock on these boards, I kind of stressed over them for a while, and to be honest, I still do sometimes. Brad had the best advice over on Pedro's thread - Keep warm and fed and watered, and leave 'em alone.

I have two colony's, wst. One has little space, packed full of adults to breed and be fed cheap dogfood, and do nothing but reproduce. They have high temps, going no lower than 80's and 90's.

The other colony has lot's of space full of nymphs and adults, being gutloaded for feeding. Their temps are slightly lower ranging between the 70's to 90's.

Both colonies are reproducing like rabbits.

 

[jesseesperto]

when i first saw mine doing this. I dint know what was going on. pretty cool though. i first thought was they make big poops..

 

[brandaleon]

ok

Is it better to have them all close together or to place more egg crates in there allowing them to be more spread out.

No matter how much space you will give them, the roaches will always congregate in groups. It seems to be their nature. I read about this on the discovery channel website. They did and experiment to test this concept we are talking about,