Hi all, I'm new to this. This site seems much easier to navigate for us new ones, so thanks for all the info! I have some ?'s if I may? I have about 200 dubia (not sure) lots of adults but more nymphs. I noticed several males that escaped. I have a lid on their enclosure so I wasn't sure what was happening. I noticed a few males out everyday for weeks, they soon died after I found them from cold I guess. I then thought I must have missed nymphs as I unpacked them from shipping. I ruled that out. I wonder if I have too many males and they fight and kick some of them out of the tribe? Just grasping straws here.
Escaping male Dubias
- Thread starter darla
- Start date
Matt K
Eurycotis
Hi Darla and welcome to the roach forums! Please feel free to ask any/all questions you want.... there are many people here who can answer your questions or give you various points of view.
My experience is that roaches always go to food and comfort. So you might take a look at what can you do to make thier home more comfortable to them and more attractive food items. Almost any species I keep seems to want to go to where the food is, the water is, or the right temps or substrate might be, so I try to make that in thier tub! However, I learned (the hard way) that this is not always the same for every roach keeper and you might consider:
1. Make one part of the cage warmer or cooler?
2. How often do you feed them and do they get a variety of fruits, veg, carbs, and proteins?
3. Is thier enclosure uniformly moist or does it have a dry end and wet end?
4. There are ways to make many variations of #3.
5. Lots of hide spots or a few?
6. How long is the light on in the room or thier enclosure?
7. Is there other stimuli? (Example: I have a few snakes in the same room, and when one deficates my B.dubia are very active from the scent of it.)
I use cypress mulch for a substrate (2 inches) with egg cartons on end over that and a half-screen lid on top. I dumps some water on one end of the tub and let the other end stay dry. They get all sorts of food items. Temp in the room is 70 at night and up to 80 during the day and they seem to do well. My room humidity is alot higher than most homes... from 65- 85 percent depending on when I watered cages last. Most homes are 20-50 percent humidity, so this in itself may make for different husbandry results from different keepers.
...I am sure that others on this forum can throw in some good input! I hope some of these points may lead to a solution to the escapee issue.
Cool! THanks for being so quick with a reply. I have a 30 gallon tub with a screen lid( homemade). I have a heating pad under 1/2 of bottom of tub, underneath of course. I feed them everyday, with various things. They love oranges and pears. I also have a dish with water crystals and another dish with the high protien mix I got from BlapticaDubia.com. I also add prium fish flakes and cheerios. I have also tried the left over greens from my bearded dragon, they were not so eager to eat those. I tried uncooked oatmeal too. Don't get mad at me if I did a major NO NO but I gave them 1/2 of an oreo cookie too. I was surprised that they didn't eat that very fast. I don't add everything at the same time but try to give them a variety to choose from each day. I was monitering the temps before and on the bottom of the tub right where the pad was it would get up to 90, but not a constant. I have about 15 roach flats verticle in the container. I also have several wads of paper towels that I damp every few days. the babies, sorry, nymphs love it in the towles. I do not have substate. I do not mist at all. I did notice many times that they were being so wild and loud that they woke my up in the night. Upon investigation they were having a wild dance! I have since learned that a fresh molt female was around. I did wonder though if I might have too many males? Is it possible? I just ordered another 100 and don't want any grown males. I think that my current population is males 2-1. So far I have found 6 or so wandering outside( in the house) males. I have a bearded dragon in the same room, I try to keep his enclosure clean but somtimes he doesn't ( go) on schedule. I also have 2 more colonies of lobster roaches. Different tubs. All roaches are in dark tubs. There is a light on in the room but I'm not sure it affects them. A window with sunshine, somtimes. They are not near the window.
Matt K
Eurycotis
Sounds like a good setup. I definately would not be concerned about the number of males in a dubia colony, though. The only things I would consider with that setup is what one or two things would you have to change to make them stay put....
? ? ? ? Otherwise you are doing the right thing !!!
Matt K
Eurycotis
Though I have not had any fly out of my own bin, I have persuaded one to fly and it flew fairly well for a large roach. Not as much of a flier as Gyna lurida, but good.
lol
You haven't seen my guys then.
What you need to do is fine a freshly molted male and coax him into flying.
So his wings are just about all the way hardened, but not with bite marks like some of them get.
Then you'll see their true potential.
Cover the bin? as in extra covering besides the lid? I have a lid that I cut a section out and glued metal screen for ventilation. The lid was for protection from a very curious cat, and I didn't want these guys spilled all over the house! Cat is not allowed in that room at all so all is ok in that respect. I still can't figure out how they got out of the tub though. No more escapees that I know of, but I got another order of 120 plus several more adult females.
Matt K
Eurycotis
I had no covering or lid at all. Now I have a lid that fits the bin which I cut out a portion of the center and glued in some window screen for ventilation. Nothing over that, just the lid with screen center.