Dubia roaches/lack of males

[Niels D]

I'm breeding Dubia roaches for a couple of months and I must say it's a succes. Man do these animals produce a lot of offspring. There's one problem though. Today I've counted only 7 adult males and I've counted at least 100 females. When looking at the nymphs it doesn't seem that I will be getting any males soon. Am I doing something wrong? At this moment I've got a very large colony, but if I'm not getting any males from now on I'm back to buying roaches from a petshop...

[Bruce]

It's very hard to sex a nymph, unless it's body shape is more round than long, then it's probably a female. If you're using these roaches as feeders, at this point it should be ok to few of a few smaller females without harm to your colony! I wouldn't worry though, I'm sure you'll find once the nymphs mature you'll end up with more males than you think you'll get.


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[Niels D]

Thanks! I think I'm not patience enough.

[Bruce]

You could always purchase some males then. You can get them for pretty cheap if you know where to look.

I'd sell you some but I've just sold a bunch and I dont think my colony could take another hit right now


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[Niels D]

Thanks for the tip. I believe that most of the nymphs aren't big enough to sex them properly like you said and I've got enough roaches in all sizes. I guess that I've got more than 500 roaches in total and more than I can feed at this moment.

[Bruce]

Honestly you won't tell until the roach is fully mature what sex it will be. I'm willing to bet you have plenty more makes than you think!


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[Niels D]

That's good to hear. Started with a Dubia colony hoping that a lot of my animals would love them. Untill now my 5 tigersalamander and my Pacman are accepting them. The others don't like them, which is a bummer really. Hoped my smaller toads and frogs would like them the nymphs. Even the Gastrothecas and the humboldts don't like them and they're both pretty ferocious.

[Bruce]

The dubia's defense is to stop moving, which can be unappealing for animals that find prey based on movement. Try putting the nymphs on their back in front of your animals. Once the roach starts struggling to flip over, the movement may trigger a feeding response from your picky eaters!

[Niels D]

The problem is that they do capture the roaches, but they let them go. The Gasthothecas are fed with tweezers and the humboldtis immidiately attack once food items are put in their enclosure.

[Bruce]

The spiny legs could be bothering them though. It could be also you're offering a nymph too large for them? Try feeding a molt smaller an see what happens.

[Niels D]

Allas. They don't like the smaller nymphs either, but there's hope though. One of the humboldtis ate one. I'm also glad that there are a lot of males in my culture now. I'm feeding them to my tigers.

[Bruce]

That's good news! It will probably just take awhile for the rest of your animals to get used to them, give it some time and it will all work out I'm sure.