Does anybody follow the dubia ratio of M/F?

[spiderengineer]

so I have a colony of dubia roaches I started with around 750 to get the colony going and had them for a about two weeks. I have seen them mate a few times and seen a few females rotate their egg case (I believe that's what they do when the push out there egg case and suck it back in). I was just wondering if any of you follow the male to female ration which I believe 1 to 4 or how important it is to follow it? I mean I read up on why its good to have the ratio, but is it that important to keep it or is it more of a general guideline to ensure successful colony population growth? If you do follow it how do you figured it out for large quantities of Dubia? Do you just take a sample size and equate that to the hole population or do you count all of them?::

 

[MB623]

I bought 25 to try and start a real small colony and they ended up being all females. Then I bought 10 males one day and 9 of them died with in a week after being put in the females enclosure. So my ratio is 1-25 unfortunately.

 

[zonbonzovi]

You would be surprised how busy just a few males will be inside of a large colony. I rarely see more than 10 in a colony that contains 200+ mature females at any one time. I've never had any problem with prolific numbers as long as they were fed regularly kept warm.

 

[spiderengineer]

I figure it was not that big a deal I just want to make sure that I wouldn't suffer some kind of colony collapse preventing my colony from achieving maximum result

 

[catfishrod69]

Female dubia are pregnant for life once mated. So the need for males are only for the virgin females. I usually have atleast 30 or so males in my colony every week. I go through alot of males. I tend to not use any females, and no nymphs that are almost adult.

 

[spiderengineer]

Female dubia are pregnant for life once mated. So the need for males are only for the virgin females. I usually have atleast 30 or so males in my colony every week. I go through alot of males. I tend to not use any females, and no nymphs that are almost adult.

I only feed the males to my Ts as well, but is that pregnant for life thing true like with queens in ant and bee colonies or were you just being funny?

 

[catfishrod69]

Nope wasnt being funny this time. They are pregnant for life once mated.

 

[spiderengineer]

Nope wasnt being funny this time. They are pregnant for life once mated.

wow, I learn something everyday on this site.