I know this is a the frog forum,but I’ve noticed that many of you have Dubia colonies. Recently I’ve cleaned out my bin and replaced all the egg crates. Also split my adults up into a breeder bin. Now I’ve been noticing an unusual amount of dead roaches. Any thoughts?? Thanks for your time.
Had similar experiences any time I tried to split the adults from the rest of the colony, maybe its the stress of cleaning their habitat out, its just more noticeable since the adults which may be dying of old age are all consolidated, or there is some kind of positive health benefits to the roaches having a stratified age range within a colony.
Probably just stress, mine get super sickly for a couple day after cleaning. However looking at which ones died will narrow down what's wrong.
If it's a roughly equal mix of adult females+males+nymphs the problem is probably just moving stress and they'll recover, but if something toxic was accidentally introduced to the bin (soap residue, chemicals the egg crate had been exposed too, etc) the whole colony should be little sluggish for more than two/three days and with increased deaths.
If it's mostly males then check your ratio and be sure you have more females than males because competition between males combined with stress from moving could be killing them.
If it's mostly females add some nymphs, females get particularly stressed by moving anyway but also become very stressed without nymphs around, I actually had that happen this week to a cup of females I'd removed to sell.
Also add some nymphs anyway, they won't lay as many in a nymph free bin, to them less babies mean resources are low or the area is dangerous and they don't want to waste energy giving birth.
Hope it turns out alright!
So my dubia look like they are recovering nicely. I looked through there bins last night and found only fast moving healthy roaches. I estimate I lost about 10% maybe a little more and mostly adults and sub adults. The bin that had nothing but adults (my new breeder bin) got hit the hardest. Sure wish I knew what happened, so I can avoid this in the future. Thank to everyone that replied.
stagger your egg crates and make sure the ventilation is on point?
I keep dubia, hissers, and giant caves and have for several years with only the occasional issue.
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