Dubia Roach Males Dying Off

Hello everyone!

I've been breeding dubias for about 6 months now. My setup is a 40 gallon tote, 24" Flexwatt heat mat under, 160 Watt CHE in a 10.5 inch metal dome up top, Lid has big air vent holes cut in it with screen hot glued for protection, and a Hydro Farm Jump Start Thermostat controlling the temps. I keep the bin at 90 deg.

My colony has been doing awesome. I have tons of babies, but I've been noticing almost all my adult mature males are dying off! Every 2-3 days when I feed them... I find 3 or 4 dead males. This has went on now for about 2 months. I would guess my colony is about 1000-1500 total.

I recently cleaned out their bin. I removed all the frass and roaches and cleaned the tote with soap and water and put them back in the tote. It had no effect and didnt help at all. I have roughly 10 mature adult males and the rest of the 1500ish are females and nymphs. I would guess I have a good 500-750 mature adult females.... and only 10 (if that) mature adult males.


I feed them kale, carrots, celery, apples, oranges, bananas, etc and also make my own roach chow from chicken feed, fish food, and cricket gut load.

Does anyone know why my males are dying off? I just noticed this in the past few months...

But.... I could just be typing all this for nothing. It could possibly be my "girlfriend" selling them to the local pet store or something or someone? It's hard to tell what goes on around here esp when I'm at work.... and she is a compulsive liar and lies to me about anything and everything... so who knows! The local pet store around here was out of dubia, but they did just start selling them again! I just dont see how it's possible to have a colony of 1500.... and only have 8-10 adult males all of the sudden? hmm.....

Anyways,
Thanks....

Are you seeing their bodies or remnants of wings etc that would indicate that they are sick and dying or being eaten by the others? If their diet is low in protein they may start eating eachother but you'd probably see their shells/wings as evidence and it probably wouldn't be widespread. I don't think illness would affect males but not females but that's just a guess. Selling the males off doesn't make much sense to me either. I don't think the males are as valuable as females for breeding and starting a colony because you tend to buy them in a ratio of about 3 or 4 to 1 females to males.

I'm seeing their whole body... it looks like they are alive and fine.... until you touch them to see if they move. then, obviously, you can tell they're dead! their body is always dried out, but that should be normal from the body laying on the bottom of the tote directly above the flexwatt heat mat. there is also no signs of fighting or injury. they literally just look like they were walking around doing their thing.... then boom! dead! lol

they always have fresh veggies, fruit, kale, water crystals, thermostat controlled, humidity is kept high using a plastic cup full of water inside to evaporate. females are doing awesome. lots of new babies inside and small ones. I have 500... maybe close to 1000 females.... and only 6 or 8 mature adult males now! my breeding is about to come to a stand still because I dont have any males! I cant figure it out though?

Where these adults when you started your colony? Could be they are just dying of old age. Learn to sex the nymphs and only feed off the females for now.
Might not be a bad idea to check craigslist, see if you can find any local dubia breeders and pick up a few males until your nymphs mature.

no, my colony started with about 100 females and 20 males. I now have 1000 females and 4 maybe 5 mature males in my bin.

I have been feeding off my younger females for the past month and leaving the males.

a chore for any dubia breeder is to sort their bin and remove excess males.... and I'm over here with 5 males to 1000 females... scratching my head...

What are you feeding them? The importance of well balanced diet really shows its importance in older (Adult) roaches. I use an organic blend for my dry feed thats been working great
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J0FP5PU

kale, carrots, celery, apples and oranges as a staple for veggies. I throw in melons, fruit etc in the mix a lot too....

I make my own dry food. usually get flukers cricket gut load, fish food flakes, and chicken feed from a local farm supply store.

they have ate this same diet for 6 months... and I dont see how it would kill only males, but females are fine eating it?

Hey Guys!

I just came here to start the exact same topic, and then found this one :lol:

I've started my lil' bin of roaches in March, and their numbers are growing steadily, but the number of (adult) males seem to be diminishing - the bodies are the same as Blitz's colony, whole (and dry), only clue of death is that they are not moving.

As you probably can see on the below picture, I'm having dubias of all sizes, all with a good appetite, but the number of males is quite low, especially if we consider that I'm not feeding from this colony yet, to allow them to settle and grow in numbers.

Could this really be an issue of old age? :study: