Baby Dubia roaches dying

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rhaegaldrogo

Hatchling Member
Hi all,

I've had my Dubia colony since this time last year, although I only got my first adults in December. They began breeding in February .Not much, but a bit.

They were doing fine, growing, and then a few months ago the babies started dying. There would be (and still are) at least 1 or two dead everyday, which is a lot I think considering the small colony size.

A lot of the babies that die are very small,,but ones up to about 15mm die fairly regularly. Rarely, a subadult will die. Adults die sometimes too, but I believe they're just due to old age.

The colony isn't growing. They aren't producing very fast and the babies are dying at near the same rate they're being born, if not more so.

I thought they were too cold, so I made their home warmer. I tried different foods (including giving protein), completely cleaned their home, removed excess males, made sure they weren't too crowded. No change. Is anyone able to help me?
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
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What are your current temps? Floor temp, half way up, and top?

What are you feeding them?

-Brandon
 

rhaegaldrogo

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
Claudiusx":1vzjzfjy said:
What are your current temps? Floor temp, half way up, and top?

What are you feeding them?

-Brandon
Hi there, sorry for the delay in response ?

The floor is about 96°F, middle is 85, top is in mid-high seventies. The temperatures were a good bit lower before, hottest point of 87, and they were still dying.

I feed them a bunch of things; porridge, cereal, bananas, apples, sweet peppers, bok choi, carrots, butternut squash, bell peppers, rocket, chard, frisée, escarole, etc. Every now and then I make a gel food combining fruits and veggies which they seem to love
 

Claudiusx

BD.org Sicko
Staff member
Moderator
The temperatures you have right now are good.

The babies are most likely dying off from a lack of protein based off of what you're feeding them. Vegies and fruits are good to keep the adults alive, but the babies will die off if there isn't enough protein available. The adults can survive without it.

But, you don't want to increase protein too much or it causes your roaches to have too much uric acid in their system.

Even though dog food is quiet high in protein, you might try picking up some of it and blending it with some oats/low sugar cereal to make a higher protein chow and give that a few weeks see of you get less die off.
Just make sure it's ground up well so the babies don't have a hard time eating it.

-Brandon
 

rhaegaldrogo

Hatchling Member
Original Poster
Claudiusx":3jjmj7em said:
The temperatures you have right now are good.

The babies are most likely dying off from a lack of protein based off of what you're feeding them. Vegies and fruits are good to keep the adults alive, but the babies will die off if there isn't enough protein available. The adults can survive without it.

But, you don't want to increase protein too much or it causes your roaches to have too much uric acid in their system.

Even though dog food is quiet high in protein, you might try picking up some of it and blending it with some oats/low sugar cereal to make a higher protein chow and give that a few weeks see of you get less die off.
Just make sure it's ground up well so the babies don't have a hard time eating it.

-Brandon

Hi there,
Apologies for bringing back an old thread. I thought I'd responded to this.

I've taken your advice in feeding more protein foods. But, the problem hasn't improved. There's an almost constant smell of death in their enclosure no matter how many times I clean it out. There's always adults dying (they're aging, which is understandable), but the younger ones die often too. The adults do breed occassionally, as I find small babies every now and then. Right now, the majority of mid sized roaches have died (and some fed to my beardie, who only began eating again a few days ago). So now it's really just a bunch of adults, tiny babies and a few 1-3month olds left.

One thing I did notice was what looked like mites in the enclosure. If I pick up frass, is looks like there's tiny things jumping and moving the frass (as if I'm blowing lightly on it), and I saw a small, whiteish bug once or twice. They're usually not visible though. Could this be what's killing them or something else?
 
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