Problem? Finding many B.dubia on their backs!

Cirith Ungol · Feb 10, 2005

Hi! I said it in the topic name.

Almost every day I find a dubia on it's back. Until today there were only males on their backs. Today I found THREE!! ONE was a female! What is going on?? What turns them arround? Is it that they try to climb, fall, turn over and can't turn arround again?

I wonder if I should put something arround the edge of the container that gives them soemthing to grab onto so they can turn arround, but I wouldn't know really what. I can't come up with any kind of geometrical form that gives them the chance to do so. Have you any idea???

One prob might be with my container that the first 2 inches of the lower egde of the inner container wall are "grippably rough". So they can climb up a tiny bit. Is it possibly that they do that, lose grip and topple over? I am quite concerned, I don't wan't all my feeders to be turning on me... pun intended... if it was one.

Joe1968 · Feb 10, 2005

hmmm , thats interesting. do you have some pics of your enclosure, I'm now curious of what kind of set-up environment you have them on. I rarely see my adults on their back, to think of it, i never seen them on their backs.

I built them a vertical roach motel made of cardboards, they pretty much stays in there most of the day, and runs around at night specially when I'm not bothering them.

VesAn · Feb 10, 2005

B. Dubia would sometimes play dead when disturbed. Were they lying on their backs with their legs/body perfectly still when you opened your enclosure, or were they struggling weakly to get up? If they weren't moving at all, they could've been just playing dead in response to you checking up on them.

Cirith Ungol · Feb 10, 2005

I have no pics. It's a plastic container with a lid. I drilled 3000 holes in it and under the container is a heat mat. The lower 2 in of the tanks inner wall are kinda rough so they can grab hold of it. That's all. I have 4 pieces of egg carton stacked sidewise inside the container. I don't know what more to mention. They are already on their backs when I find them so it doesn't seem to me as if they were turnin on their backs right before I do.

Beth-Tex · Feb 10, 2005

Hmmm........now we have to play detective & find the cause.

Are the adults mostly newly matured or are they (let's say) about a year old or so?

What is their liquid or water source?

What is their food source?

Is the heat mat functional? Have you checked?

Beth

Cirith Ungol · Feb 11, 2005

I got my dubia over a month ago. I believe I got a good cross section in age and estimate that I have about 15 mature males left (from 44 roaches in total). Some of them are newly matured. Their water source is dayly fresh fruit that has been defrosted in a worm water bath, so with the fruit always comes an extra surplus of water "stuck" to the defrosted fruit pieces. The heat mat works and gives of a steady 35 degrees celcius. When penetrating the tank bottom the heat will have decreased to about 30 degrees C.

I give them banana almost every day, some days kiwi, some orange, at times vegetable pieces which they didn't enjoy that much tho. They will eat them when very hungry but most of all they seem to prefer the banana. They get to it emediatly when I drop it. When leaving them some orange they pull it into their hide.

While writing this I checked their container again. Right next to the edge was another turned male. Another walked past my hand while I was turning him and climbed up the rough part of the edge. I am starting to believe they climb up the rough part, lose grip, fall, turn over. Since every roach I've found like that has been near the egde of the container.

Or could I be wrong?

Joe1968 · Feb 11, 2005

I think your right, your dubia tried to climb and fell on their backs, roaches loves to climb, specially tall places. its in their nature. I think I have a solution to your problem, try build them a roach motel, heres one I build, got the idea from CM (see sticky), instead this one made from card board boxes. this would be perfect for them, they pretty much stays inside all day and comes out at night, this also gives them a sence of secutiry, also they like it because its dark. thats pretty much all they do is just hangs in there. even my newly born nymphs stays in there now.

next time I'm gonna build the motel a little bit taller and more rooms.

as far as water, fruits are good, but I also make my own water supplement made of agar called "moisture munchies" very easy to make. here a good site for the recepe from Polliwog (thanks Polli).

http://www.polliwog-design.com/moisturemunchies.html

http://www.polliwog-design.com/roaches.html

Cirith Ungol · Feb 11, 2005

I have a put egg cartons in the container, stacked them up like the motel. But I will build such a motel instead, one with closer ribs as yours. And I will put tape on the rough edges of the tank so they don't get up there anymore...

I can't afford the agar at the moment, but have allready plans to make some moisture supplement of that kind so that I don't have to replace the food every day. Because what if I wanna go away for a few days?

Joe1968 · Feb 11, 2005

that agar recepe is great, it only cost me 0.99 cents for a small pack, I cook them and I use orange juice instead of water to add flavor and nutrients. then I cut the agar in small cubes and store them in the fridge, so far it lasted me couple of months but them again my colony of roaches is quite small at the moment. Fruits here in the US is a little bit expensive I think.

Cirith Ungol · Feb 11, 2005

Thise little bugs are trying to wear my mentals down!! No I've taped over all the rough edges of the container and suddenly a few hours later I find 3 roaches on their backs in the middle of the container??!?!?! What is wrong with them? Had all roaches in the world the same problem there wouldn't be any more roaches! They would have died out billions of years ago...

The only way for me now is to build a kind of false bottom for the entire container that is so irragular in shape that they can grab hold of something whether they are upright or upside down! But I don't see any reason for why this is happening!

Unless there is 1 roach from hell in there which likes to run arround turning its chums over just to get a good laugh! If only I find that bugger I'll let my scorpion teach him a thing or two!

roach dude · Feb 12, 2005

cirith do you have any substrate (soil peat sand......)?? because when my roaches fall over they flick lots off substrate all over the place and mange to get back over by themselfs by doing this.i have b.gigatius.and hissers

Cirith Ungol · Feb 12, 2005

No, I have no substrate at all really. I was thinking of going non substrate because it would be easier to single out the babies later... but if I have the alternative between "prolonged baby picking" and "roach-back mass suicide" I don't really see a way arround the substrate...

Beth-Tex · Feb 13, 2005

I don't use any substrate for my colony & they are doing great.....I simply place egg carton all around the edges also & if they try to 'stretch' their legs a bit & tumble over......they just land on the egg crate carton & right themselves & keep on trucking.

Cirith Ungol · Feb 13, 2005

Would you have a picture of that Beth, I can't really imagine what that looks like...

I'm thinking and thinking of a solution to this... and still to come up with one. It'd be most safe with a motel that large that it fills the entire floor, that way they can only walk about sideways and never fall over... I'll look into building that. Only problem with it is that I need some place where I can drop the food AND I would basically have to build the cardboard thing in a very specific shape and size so that it fitts into the container.. Why can't the container people go about building contaniers that are just simply square??? Why do they have to build them with odd corners and half cylinder shapes smack in the middle of a side???

Enough lamenting... once I really wake up I'll go about building the super motel that covers the entire floor.

roach dude · Feb 13, 2005

they might just be unhealthy roaches and keep on dying! did u order them online or go to a proper shop??????

Cirith Ungol · Feb 13, 2005

I ordered them online from a proper shop

Beth-Tex · Feb 13, 2005

I am sorry but don't have a digital camera.

However....to somewhat explain......I have a 69.1 L (73 QT) Sterilite container for the dubias...........I don't use substrate as it makes cleaning up easier............use eggcrates ordered online from eggcarton.com & I do cover the whole bottom except about a 4" strip on the side where I place the food container, the waterbites container, & the fruit/veggies container.....(3 separate containers which really are lids from other containers (lol)).............

sooooo in essence, I have three of the sides plus the rest of the floor area that have egg carton placed in the container (not standing up.....but laying flat so the roaches can scramble & hide underneath like roaches like to do when scurring about)..........the egg cartons touch all sides except the portion I keep free for the food containers,etc.

The reason you are having problems is because of your container.....mine has all very smooth plastic & if a roach gets a couple of its legs up on the side trying to climb......it simply slides back onto the egg crates.

I soooo wish I could give you a picture but alas.......no camera & no scanner either.

Cirith Ungol · Feb 13, 2005

Oh that's no problem. Your latest description gave me a good picture

. I'll do something about it asap. I didn't get arround to it today alas but I will eventually. I just have to look out for the "turners" until I've fixed the problem.

Thanks y'all!

Cirith Ungol · Mar 10, 2005

Hello again. Time to revive this thread...

I have since switched to dogfood. I got some free samples at one of the local petshops. Very nice (because they gave me 9 free bags of that food!) :clap:

It's two different brands, one with 24% protein, the other with 28%. Sadly my bag of catfood didn't tell me how much protein it contained so I have nothing to compare it to

Anyway, I put a few pieces of dog food in the container and will check upon it the comming days to see if there is any change.

Hope they have more fun with that kind of food than the other...

Beth-Tex · Mar 11, 2005

My roaches love the different types of dog food I give them......but I do grind it up......have experimented with putting in the whole pieces......did not have a good response to that (they are soooo spoiled LOL)......but they do like it just fine when ground up.

Problem? Finding many B.dubia on their backs!

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