Quote Originally Posted by demon amphibians View Post
i wanna say 4 weeks roughly from the time they mate to berth. But they wont be able to breed for another 4 weeks so each female will have an ootheca once every two months. Now they are susceptible to stress. with that said if you stress them out they will drop there ootheca before they can give berth. I am not totally sure if this happens before they mate or after. more then likely if it has been six weeks since it mated and it still hasn't given berth then i would assume the eggs were dropped due to stress. I check mine once a day and they drop the eggs often. but i have no choice because my bins don't hold moisture well with my lamps and they eat a lot and my colonies are huge. If you have less then 5000 it would be ok to check them every 3 days to once a week. the more privacy they have the better they will do.
A girl who got her starter colony the same time I did said she read it can take 2 extra weeks for 1st time mothers. But don't know where she got that info and if it applies to pregnancy or to time needed to mature after final adult molt. She doesn't have baby roaches yet either. All of mine, boys and girls, were large nymphs when I got them in late dec 2012. The 1st winged male appeared jan 6th or 7th (females matured faster, hey like with people, hah). Takes another week or 2 for them to mature enough to mate. I'm going to give it another week, because I haven't seen any abandoned oothecae or casings. It hasn't been 6 weeks yet, since I saw the 1st one, just 5. As soon as I saw her with it hanging out, I closed lid and let her be, came back and she and it were hidden again. I've seen other fat ladies with them partially out, too. I'll try to check on them less, it's just hard when I'm expecting at least a few litters any day now. but better to be patient and let them have their privacy, than to lose the babies and wait MORE time. thanks.