Dubia

[Sadie0223]

Hello,

I am trying to start my own colonial of Dubia Roaches I have 5 females and 5 males. I have tried Carrots, bananas, greens. i have them in a clear container with a blanket on the bottom of the container, i have 5 egg cartons, gel water and food. anything i am missing please let me know? I am all new to how to start a colonial. Can anyone help me.

Thanks,
Sadie

 

[ruben0311]

so with male to female ratio you will need to reduce the number of males, having a large number of males with an equal number of females will cause competition and injuries or health issue between the whole group. try and have 1 to every 3 or 4 female. if you do not have any nymphs in the enclosure that can sometimes reduce the likelyhood of mating, it's thought that having young in with adults promotes breeding. remember that they are live bearing species so you won't have anything visible for about 1 month. temps should be in the 90s and humidity needs to be relatively high. keep at it and you should se results. I routinely add more nymphs so i keep the numbers up and only use the new nymphs as feeders. it takes some time to get it going but once it does it gives you a constant, sometimes excess, amount of feeders.

 

[ruben0311]

a more important question i forgot to ask... how old are the females? where did you get them? females can only breed a certain amount of times so if they are old they may not be able to have any more young.

 

[quyllur]

They are also going to poop a lot, so I would remove the blanket. Bare bottom will be far easier to clean.

 

[Sadie0223]

a more important question i forgot to ask... how old are the females? where did you get them? females can only breed a certain amount of times so if they are old they may not be able to have any more young.

i dont know how old they are, i got them from this place allanimalexpo.com out by me in Illinois

 

[Sadie0223]

They are also going to poop a lot, so I would remove the blanket. Bare bottom will be far easier to clean.

the blanket is under the tote to keep it warm

 

[ruben0311]

give them some more time and toss in smaller sized dubia also, if after a month you dont see some little ones running around get some new females and try again. By that time some of the sub-adults should be fully grown so you'll have your own brand new females to utilize. Try having only one male inside. they could be so competitive that the females are either rejecting them or they are not allowing each other to mate properly.