Having a little problem with B. dubia care related descissions

Cirith Ungol

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Hi!

I have my little dubia colony and am waiting for the first batch of babies. I check upon them extremely briefly every day by shining a torch through the lid to see if everything is alright. I don't wanna disturb them any more than nessessary. When putting food in there I am very brief with it too.

I try to leave them alone and in peace as much as possible because I'm worried they might abort their egg sacks if I fiddle with them too much. Now today I did a more thorrow check up and found that some of the roaches had died and lay upside down in between the egg cartons.

I don't know what to do now! I'd like to get them out but would have to disturb the colony in a way comparable to an earthquake in a major city. I am worried that that will cause abortions! Why I'm so worried about just that is because I've HEARD they may do that, but I have not the slightest clue as to what ticks them off enough to commence that kind of action!

Can anybody with some experience, please tell me how to handle that?

Gosh that sounds all very dramatic again... no I'm not on the virge of a mental collapse, just worried in a normal kinda way :D

Thanks!
Cirith
 

fantasticp

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Don't have dubias, but I have Orange heads and surinam roaches and the only aborted eggsac I have ever seen was after I fed an adult surinam roach to a centipede. All that was left was the typical wing and an eggsac. I still wonder if he ate around it or it came out......back to topic. I dig through both bins all the time, rearranging eggcrates and such and have never seen it happen. Anyone else?
 

fantasticp

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P.S I though they only aborted them if you disturbed them when the eggsac was halfway out, and I don't do that.
 

Beth-Tex

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Are you sure that these are not the molts??? They look just like the roaches with legs n' all.......then when you pick up the "dead" roach......you find that it is just the molt. That has been my case. I've just recently thoroughly cleaned out my colony after leaving them alone since beginning of Dec & have not found any sign of dead roaches......all those "dead" ones have turned out to be molts.
 

Cirith Ungol

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I've sadly enough had quite a few deaths since I started the colony, and mainly because of the completely mystical reason that they turn over and die. Really like the classical comical image of a dead animal, lying on it's back all legst stiff up in the air...

I am starting to wonder if it's the type of tank (if the plastic gives off something odd or what it is, had that been the case tho I think all of them should be dead by now).

I havn't checked yet wheter they actually are moults but they look real and not at all moulty. :( I'll check right now what's going on...
 

Cirith Ungol

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OK, I've checked and I found 4 dead roaches (the skins were full and heavy). But from being mystical deaths they now turned into being simply odd ones. 3 of them were mature males so they could have died of old age. All four were basically loged right under the egg carton and pressed together so they might also have been squashed or trapped there. I found two discarded eggsacks, both were rather hard so I guess they are a little older. Still annoying tho :(
 

Schlyne

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Are sure you're giving them enough fruit? B dubia will abort if they're not getting enough fruit in the diet.
 

Cirith Ungol

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I basically only give them fruit. I do so at least every other day. I've never found any of the fruit being eaten completely, there is always enough left for them to eat another few days. Obviously it dries up, but as I said at least every other day they get new fruit. They get banana, kiwi and orange at the moment. I will be extending to apple and a few others I havn't made my mind up about yet.
 

Cirith Ungol

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They have also dry cat food in their container. I guess I have to have some extended food programs with more variety.
 

xelda

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Do you provide any type of heat source for the roaches?
 

Schlyne

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Cirith Ungol said:
They have also dry cat food in their container. I guess I have to have some extended food programs with more variety.
Fish food is probably better. Roaches will store protein, and with the high %age of protein in cat food. In nature storing up protein isn't an issue, but in capativity like this, they will continue to store protein until they end up with an excess..which leads to an early death.

I'm paraphrasing what I've read from other posts about roaches and protein, I can't explain it in exact words at the moment :mad:
 

Cirith Ungol

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Funny thing is that they don't seem to like my kind of cat food particularily much... I've never seen them eat it and some pieces they seem only to have nibbled on (unless I'm imagining it and they have ignored it completely). But I guess I'll try with fish food if that's better! Is there any special kind I should get?
 

Cirith Ungol

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Today I'll extend my dubias diet with apple, cucumber and strawberries (I guess I'll have to be on the lookout for mould there).

I don't know if they like cucumber, but I hope so since cucumber is mostly water... (cucumber does in "fact" contain a higher percentage of water than a lake :D )
 

xelda

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They're probably not eating the cat food because they're not able to. You have to grind the cat food up. You also have to make sure the food is fresh. If it's gone stale from sitting in the cage for a long time (more than a few weeks) then they're not going to eat it. It's possible they're not getting enough protein.

By the way, dubias find cat food much more attractive than fish food.
 

Cirith Ungol

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Ok about the grinding! Havn't thought about it because I automatically assumed they'd be chewing away on it just like crix do. But it seems crix have much more powerful jaws than dubias.

I'd be very happy to give them cat food instead of fish food!! Fish food costs gazillions more than cat food and I have it at home anyway, as you can imagine.

So what's that about roaches storing protein that is so bad? I don't really get that yet :?
 

Cirith Ungol

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Thanks for the links! That was a good read!

I'll switch to dog food and anything else that falls on the ground when I prepare food ... usually half of what I'm preparing :D

Maybe the cat food is the killer......
 
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