Dubia fertility

P

Pacmaster

First Instar
So in my main colony, I look about 1x a week for new adults, and always find a few- mostly males.

So given that I find them within a few days after the final molt, how long after this are females able to breed and produce?

I have a second colony started with around 35 females and I keep only 5 males in it.

The 2nd colony has been setup for about 1month, and only has ever contained adults.

Still no babies yet . . .

The first colony always has tiny fresh babies, Im sure theres a couple wily old females in there still . . .

 
So what Im asking is how long after the last molt are they ready to breed.

Is it 5 minutes, 3 days, 2.5 weeks, or what?

 
As soon as they firm up and darken. A new colony can take a while for the roaches to get comfy in but when they do they will start having plenty of babies if you feed them well, have a moisture source and keep them warm.

 
So gametogenesis is already carried out in the short time between molting and exoskeleton curing or is it already compleated before the "maturation" molt?

 
Thats exactly what I am wondering.

I think it was answered as " as soon as they darken", but that is really vague.

Its not that Im in a terrible hurry to get the colony going, its just that I was wondering what the timespan is till a mature female produces her 1st litter.

Since I posted the original thread, I have gotten 2 litters in the new colony.

This leads me to believe that the above statement is plausible if not factual.

Today is 5 weeks exactly that I started that colony with freshly matured adults, and I found the 1st babies on the 15th.

So give or take a day or 2, they can breed right away and produce offspring in roughly 1- 1.5 months.

In the last week, Ive had a bunch of females mature, and the starter colony now has about 75 females and 20 males.

I wont touch the tub except to feed/water them, and see how it looks in a few months.

They say once your 1st generation of babies is breeding that the colony is matured enough to feed from . . . hope so.

The original colony can keep the rest of the adults it produces, and Ill still look for males to feed off.

I would estimate that colony is around 5-6 hundred strong, as it came with a bunch of gravid and producing females and I replenished it with 200 large nymphs recently.

 
Sorry I can't be more detailed. I was hoping someone more experienced would chime in. I haven't been keeping dubia very long but I have spent a lot of time watching them while I've had them. When the females molt and finally look like adult females they are highly attractive to the males and will begin mating. I assume the males are ready as soon as they get their wings. I have never seen the males bothering the immature females so I doubt they mature already pregnant. I don't know how long from mating to birth but I do know the frequency of "litters" is strongly affected by the temperature and in my opinion, the variety of foods offered to them. I've had them not produce babies at all for a while when everything appears fine to me and I gave them a grapefruit segment and they began popping out nymphs like little factories after that. Later someone told me they do require some citrus in their diet. I can't prove it but it seems right to me.

 
Well I am not sure how similar roaches are to crickets, but house crickets (the kind most people use as feeders) generally take about 1-2 weeks for them to sexually mature after their final molt. Their genitalia need time to develop, and they cant breed directly after the final molt

Hope this helps a little

 
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I've observed related species like E. posticus mating while the female is still white, so the answer to mating after the molt is a few minutes. I've never seen any of the egg laying species mating while they're still white.

 
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