Dubias not breeding

[Dom]

I have a colony of dubias and am having very poor breeding results. My lateralis are in a tub next them and are breeding FAST.
Temps are high, lots of fruit, near darkness and I only disturb them for about 30 seconds or less a day to put more fruit in, mist them, and see if any babies have shown up. Anyone else experience this?

 

[ScorpDemon]

what are the temps in the room? do you have any additional heating on the dubia? I've never kept them myself.. the few lateralis that I have are breeding fine at room temps, but if im not mistaken the dubia require at least 85-90 degrees to produce well..

 

[Cirith Ungol]

I have a colony of dubias and am having very poor breeding results. My lateralis are in a tub next them and are breeding FAST.
Temps are high, lots of fruit, near darkness and I only disturb them for about 30 seconds or less a day to put more fruit in, mist them, and see if any babies have shown up. Anyone else experience this?

Throw them some dry low protein dog food (18-22% protein). You don't need to crush it, just toss it in there. That might help.

 

[Dom]

Thanks for the replies.
The temps are 80-100F.
They do have powdered dog food in one corner and a mixture of grains in another. I neglected to mention the dog food because I always assumed it was basic roach fare. I mentioned the fruit because I've read in several places dubia need it to breed well. They have apples and carrots mostly and occasionally cauliflower and an orange slice.

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Sounds good. Now give them time. They need at least 5-8 weeks to produce anything

 

[Dom]

Sorry I'm usually a little better at stating the whole picture in my posts, I've been a little slack with this one.
I have about 80 females that started maturing on Dec.1 at about one a day. I have well over a dozen that have been mature for 2 months+.
Perhaps they're all saving their babies up for one big population explosion .

 

[Cirith Ungol]

Yeah maybe.

Do you have any mature males?

 

[xelda]

I only disturb them for about 30 seconds or less a day to put more fruit in, mist them, and see if any babies have shown up.

Sounds like you're doing everything just right, but you'll have better luck producing babies if you don't search for them everyday. You could give them 24 hours a day of privacy, but that 30 seconds of nosing around the cage is all it takes to set you back. Females will drop their egg cases if they get stressed out (like when you start picking up egg cartons and causing a stir). Leave them alone for maybe a week or two, aside from giving them food. Then you'll see babies practically appear overnight. It's best to just look for them in the corners and cool parts of the cage where there aren't as many roaches. That way you don't disturb all the adults. And that's usually where you'll find the babies anyway.

You can't really compare the situation with lateralis because the babies will continue to hatch whether the roaches are stressed or not.

 

[JohnxII]

Yep keep the tank dark and untouched for a week or so (that's how often I feed them). Give them lots of surface area. Oh, treat them sweets. Mine seem to like sweetened cereals.

 

[Dom]

Thanks for the input. I haven't found any aborted egg cases yet. Can they retain the babies if they are stressed?
When I check on the dubia it is often just to drop food in and not necessarily to poke around. With the lateralis I literally turn everything over to find the egg cases because I hatch them in another container so I can grade the size of them and keep track of the age of my breeding stock. This intrusion doesn't seem to be slowing the lateralis down. I guess the dubia are just more easily stressed.
I'll leave them alone for a week and we'll see what happens.

 

[reverendsterlin]

dubias don't need the dog food, and they are live bearers so no egg cases. Despite constant temps mine produce fewer offspring in the winter months. be sure to leave frass for the nymphs. good luck.
Rev

 

[Jaden]

Food.

I use normal fish food as food for my Blaptica dubia. Room temp is around 75- 80 degrees and they breed every month or so. I even keep them in a 20 gallon fish tank. Put paper towel rolls (The cardboard inside.), a water dish (No I haven't had one drown yet.), and a piece of newspaper on top to cover them.

 

[Dom]

Just thought I'd post an update.
I left them alone for a week and judging by the numbers it looks like one female had babies, approximately 20 were found. Given that I have 80 mature females I'm not too impressed at this point. I'm going to break the colony into 2 groups this week-end and see if I can get better results.

 

[dr_hemlock2]

feeding

i feed all my feeders oats from the grocery store in expensive and they are breeding like weeds. i also do not feed them fruits of any kind else someother pests will come and kill the colony or damage it. i also put a large lid of water in there with them and check it everyday temps stay around 74 degrees constant. do not check humid since figure they have a large water dish for this. do not have any drownings due to placing the plastic screening cut to size and it floats when you fill up with water and does not allow for drownings i do this with all my inverts except spiderlings,
-doc-:?