Hey Code Monkey!

i was reading old posts about roach colonies and became very interested in your "roach motel". what size bolts and spacers did you use?

also what type of ferret food and dog food do you use?

are there any other grains that are important?

how much of their droppings should be left in the housing?

BTW, i am going to be keeping blaberus discoidalis, don't know if this matters or not?

thanks
chris

I've actually moved from the bolts to just hot gluing in 1/2" molding sections in between the cork - much, much easier than trying to thread the bolts.

As for dog food, I just use whatever I'm feeding the dog, right now that's Biljac. I doubt brand is important. Then I feed them leftover fruit and veggies from the fridge. Between the millipedes, hissers, and B. dubia I rarely actually waste anything.

You can leave as little or as much of the frass as you want but I've taken up cleaning out all of it every couple of weeks. I don't know if they necessarily like it but we've got a hemolymph infecting yeast that's killing our B. germanica colonies at the university and I'll be damned if I'll do anything that increases the chances of getting it in my home colonies if I should happen to bring some of it home on me.

Discoids will work just the same. I use the exact same set up, just with peg board instead of cork, to rear P. americana by the thousands at the lab.

thanks for your help

do you think cat food is good too or just dog food?


what's the difference between peg and cork board?

Stick to dog food. Cat food is much too high in protein to make a good staple as far as I'm concerned.

Here's the setup with the spacers versus bolts:

I like that "hotel", that is a great idea. Will it work for death heads? I am trying to start a colony of these. I know this is a stupid question but, what is the scientific name for the death heads? I looked arouned in thair tub erlyer and it looked like a few of them had a wing torn off, why? tanks for some help on this, I hop it was ok to post this here.:?

Originally posted by James M.
I know this is a stupid question but, what is the scientific name for the death heads?

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**blaberus craniifer

I just use the paper egg crating that crickets come packed it for my roach colonies. It's free, Doesn't require any alteration, and can be tossed when it starts to fall apart. Also, you can pick up a section and knock cockroaches into your transfer container.

Wade

I was wrong!

I was told they where "false death's heads" and on some web site had pics. with names and had a pic. of the kind I got and it was labeled death's head. After further research last night I learned I have the discoid, Blaberus discoidales. So, CM, are you saying to use the cork board or the peg board? And do you us no substait or you do and what kind do you prefer?

Corkboard is lighter but more expensive, the roaches aren't going to care either way.

I don't use substrate any more.

CM thank you

I thank you for your info.

If you opt to go with pegboard you'll need access to a table saw of some variety. I'd also recommend sticking to sections of 6 plates or less so you can manipulate them easier. They weigh a good bit next to the cork board ones.

I work in construction so cutting tools are no problem. I will go to the hardware store and pickup the supplise. what thickness of cork board is best? I'll look at cork and peg board to deside what I will get. Thank you again Mr. CM.

I used 1/4" board with 1/2" x 1" fake wood molding (light weight and moisture proof) chopped into 4" sections and hotglued into place.

Thank you.

too high in protein?

Originally posted by Code Monkey
Stick to dog food. Cat food is much too high in protein to make a good staple as far as I'm concerned.

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I have to disagree on that one Code Monkey. The original post said he was breeding Blaberas Discoidales. Which are well known for wing biting in the adults and a high protein diet will help reduce the wing biting. Since fluttering of the wings is a part of the mating ritual for this species I would think it's fairly important they keep their wings in my humble opinion. From my personal experience a good portion of roaches like a high fat high protein diet anyway.

Re: too high in protein?

Originally posted by RoachmanDan
From my personal experience a good portion of roaches like a high fat high protein diet anyway.

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Well, from my personal opinion as a member of the urban entomology team at Virginia Tech which does most of its work with roaches I will say your experience has led you to make false conclusions.

1) You're the first person I've ever seen suggest that discoids have major problems with wing biting (E. prosticus, yes, discoidales, no). Also, as food for thought, although this behavior is generally blamed on lack of protein, it's not as though roach wings have any significant protein content at all (it's primarily polymerised sugars).

2) Roaches most certainly do not like high lipid content. We have found species of roaches that will starve rather than eat through the fat layer that the extrusion process used to make some cheap dog foods coats the nuggets with.

3) Roaches do not need high protein, their wild type diets are much less than 10% protein and it is actually possible to kill them by feeding them a diet of high protein. Roaches are extremely poor at getting rid of nitrogenous wastes relative to other insects and wind up storing most of it in their fat bodies, beyond a certain level it becomes toxic -> I'm *not* claiming that catfood is enough to kill them, I highly doubt it is, but I do stand by my claim that it should not be used as a staple food.