911-b-dubia

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
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Dec 22, 2004
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Hi!

I don't know what is going on here... since I've had my dubia colony I've repeatedly found mature males lying on their backs, appearantly dying. Can they have tipped over or something and are unable to turn over again? Is that why they die? I've seen several pairs mating, do male dubia die after mating???

What is going on??? No females or juvs are doing that!
 

VesAn

Arachnosquire
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Nov 8, 2004
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I know for sure they don't die after mating. The situation you describe has never happened with my colony, so I don't know much about what's going on...

Edit: Adult male roaches do attack one another as a territory/mating competition thing. From what I understand the fight gets nastier and would result in casualties if you only have a few adults males in the colony.
 
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roach dude

Arachnobaron
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Jan 5, 2005
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i think (think) that it might be sheding because T's do it when they are going to shed so if i was u i would leave it if it is omn its back and if it is dead then that is realy weird!!!
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
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Na, I don't think it's moulting... I've seen that happen a few times and they've always stayed upright.
 

james

Arachnobaron
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Dubia

The males do not live nearly as long as females. If they are on there back an not struggling to flip over that is a good sign death is near. The males also mature a lot faster and you should be able to replace them. I'm raising another 1,000 for my breeding colony and I would say so far I have 90.30, but I can already tell I will end up with many more females. The males molt first and die much sooner. Some species the males will only live 1-3 months after final molt.
James
www.blaberus.com

P.S. To bad your not in the U.S. I always have extra males.
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
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Thank you James! I wast feeling panic creaping up behind me and thought something was wrong... I've had 4 male deaths so far and had kept feeding those to my one T and one scorp. They got uber-fat and today as the fourth toppled over I thought: "This has to be the end of the emergency feeding programme!" So I took a little pillbox, put the latest death in there and shoved it into the freezer. That way it will still surve a purpose... as prekilled feeders.

Luckily I've seen quite a few roaches mate during the last days - it is correct that the roaches are joined at the tail end when mating I assume? Because that is what gave me the mating impression. I will tho try to obtain a few more dubia over the next weeks eventho I have mated ones, since I can't know yet if the conditions are right for the females to actually give birth or if they might decide to abort the eggsack.

Was it a month before the young emerge??
 

james

Arachnobaron
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dubia

That was them breeding and you will have babies in a month or so. Make sure they get some fruit, it is more important for this species than some others.
James
 

Cirith Ungol

Ministry of Fluffy Bunnies
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Jupp... Thanks! I have some dry food (cereal and other) strewn about and also some cat food, which is in more for the decorational value I have noticed since they don't touch it :D But there is always fresh fruit in there.

Does anybody have a picture of newly born dubia where I can see the size difference between the adults and young ones. I'd need to know if they are lare enough to get up a ridge in the container that runs along the egde of the tank bottom. Don't want them to get stuck in the lower area of the tank bottom. Also, I have to devise some plan to serve the food on some dish that has a very low profile (no edge basically).
 

james

Arachnobaron
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Oct 20, 2003
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dubia

They are very small 1/8" or so as newborns. I just toss food in my cages because it easier for all of them to access the food.
James
 
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