discoid breeding problem?

[LindsayMarie]

I have a handful of adults now and around 4 weeks ago I saw two mating. Then the other night I saw a female with her egg sac protruding (all this through the bin as it is a clearer color). Although I do feed/water them daily. Anyways I was happy! I figured I should see some nymphs in july or so. Then the bad news. I went to feed them and a female dropped an entire healthy looking egg sac! ARGHGHGHG!!! Its probably the same female as I only have a few that are adults and I dont want to stress them out by checking their gender. So what went wrong? I know this species is much more skittish. In terms of housing, should they be kept differently then dubias or hissers? This stinks! Any help would be great. It will be good when the replacement discoids arrive. With more breeding in that colony I wont care so much that an egg sac has been dropped

I have kept lobsters and distantis in the past and currently have dubias, hissers and discoids and this is the 1st time I have ever seen this?!

 

[John J Starr Jr]

LongShot

I will take a longshot here. Maybe you could try and feed them enough food and enough water crystals to last 2 or 3 days. This would also include spraying water if you need to do that on the sides of the cage to last for 2 or 3 days as well. All of my roaches are kept in the least most visited room of the house.

I have noticed that the discoids are very skiddish as well. I started with 150 nymphs and now those are all adults with around 1000 very small newborns. Yes, I find aborted egg sacks sometimes as well. I have also found several dead adults from the time that I have started with them.

The craniifer are also skiddish and I think they are more so than the discoidalis are. I have about 100 small newborn craniifer nymphs. My fusca seem to be less skiddish than the discoidalis are. I am not sure of babies or not. I leave my roaches alone for the most part.

I believe that the least skiddish of all of my Blaberus species would be the parabolicus. While this is just an observation they seem to come back out into their same routines right after a complete cage clean out which includes washing the inside of the aquarium with water, new substrate, new egg cartons, fresh food and water crystals. I have over 200 newborn babies with them. They are a very chunky insect and I believe that they may actually replace the discoidalis as a Blaberus feeder roach of choice, IMVHO. Gee, this almost sounds like an advertisement or something. Nope, none for sale from myself at this time but I think that once people get them and discuss it with others online the word could spread that hey, these are much better than the discoidalis.

Owe, so far one of Dragons who just happens to be named Cricket will not touch crickets any more at all. Instead of eating about 100_1/2_inch_long crickets each day she will eat about 10_1_inch_long Blaptica_dubia. Raising exotic S.A. roaches are about the best idea anybody could have for saving money, time, and that nasty cricket smell for their reptiles and arachnids. JMO

John J Starr Jr
,

 

[slingshot71]

I started with a small Discoid starter colony of about 15 adults. For several months I would find dropped egg cases and no nymphs. After moving them to a warmer place, they began to reproduce like crazy. Now after about 3 or 4 months, I have several hundred small to medium sized nymphs and all of my adult females are constantly fat. I have only found 1 dropped egg case since increasing the temperature.

From what I have read here on the boards, Discoids can be very difficult to get started.

Another bit of advice that I received, that seems to be working, is to leave plenty of molts in the enclosure. This seems to keep them from nibbling on each others wings, which I'm sure causes some stress.

Good luck, and keep with it, you will eventually reap the rewards.

Kevin

 

[nomad85]

I started with 20 adults, I had a few aborted oothecas in the first few months, and no babies at all. Once I stopped checking them everyday and set them on a heat pad they started producing and havent slowed down, I have hundreds of adults and I dont even want to think about how many nymphs.... I think they may just need some time to settle in, I interact with mine quite a bit now, and I dont get aborted oothecas very often, I also took them off heat for a while and they were still fine, so isolation and heat are good ideas, but time seems to be the main thing they need.
good luck.

 

[JohnxII]

I have 10+ species of roaches and I have to say discoids are the most productive so far. They thrive on a more densely populated environment BTW.