Selective Breeding

S

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Second Instar
This is pertaining to a group of Dubias. In September i got 500 that were about .75" long (about the size of a cricket). They were all very close in size with only slight color variation. As of last week 60-70% are adults and i found my first new Nymphs in the bin. Just over 4 months total time. Now this brings up a lot of questions for me.

Is it normal to have a large group of individuals (30-40%) that mature at half to a quarter of the speed of the fastest 20%? At least half of these look to stilll have 2 molts to adulthood.

Does anyone separate to maintain a healthy, growing colony?

Will separating the group make a noticeable difference to future generations?

Are there other things can be done to increase reproduction rates and health of the colony outside of environment?

Right now i'm thinking of separating all of these very slow growing nymphs into a different bin, but am still very amature in the rearing of cockroaches. Any help would be appreciated.

 
Hmm i think that's just normal. My country is warm all year round and roaches here mature at half the normal rate that takes most temperate countries to make a mature roach.

If you have roach eating pets you could feed off the matured adult males as they usual die first anyways. Other than that, good for you!

Good luck! :)

 
The majority of the roaches i have matured very quickly. Faster than most of the accounts i've heard of Dubias actually. Higher temps definitely showed quicker maturation in my case, so I don't know why you're experiencing the opposite.

The adult males started to die within a few weeks of becoming adult so i definitely know what you mean there. Hungry Ackie monitor in house. He's still a little small for the adult males though.

 
If you select for fast maturing roaches, you would likely end up with smaller adults and maybe smaller litters containing larger nymphs. You could try to select for multiple traits (large adult size/fast maturing) simultaneously to avoid this, but that is very tricky.

 
That does make sense. I guess i'll just let them go and think on this more. I'm surprised with how much variation can come from one seller of same sized nymphs. Any tips to recognize undesireable traits or desireable ones would help a lot here.

Thanks

 
Depends on the person. Dubia will sell for the same amount no matter what unless you got a strain of albino... Even then. So if you find roaches that are slow and easy going and you like that, save those ones in a separate bin and breed them separate of the main colony.

 
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