Culling my feeder colony, need suggestions

Hello guys,

My Dubia Colony has recently had some unwelcome guests, around 5 weeks ago I noticed a different breed of roach inside my Dubia Colony. I suspect that the intruder is an American Cockroach since they are common in my country (Philippines). I immediately removed the water source in my colony to lower the humidty for 1 month and reduced the food supply of my colony to hopefully kill off the intruders, to no avail the intruders are still alive and have begun multiplying. I have reached the conclusion that I need to handpick some of my healthy dubias, separate them and start a new colony. Because of the colony size(est 3-5k roaches) I cannot simply separate all of them. I have 3 problems:

1. I cannot freeze the whole colony since the container is a 100L plastic box and it wont fit in the fridge.
2. I cannot clean the container while some of the inhabitants are alive because Dubias are not native to my country, it might tip the balance of the ecosystem if some escape and the intruders are considered pests, a pest outbreak won't be tolerated. Plus I really want to kill those little demons that messed up my colony.
3. Any attempts to use poison on my container might render it useless. I plan on reusing it.

Any ideas on how to kill the inhabitants of the colony without any of them escaping after I separate my progenitor dubias for a new colony?

I thought of using bleach and water to drown them but i'm not quite sure it will work, I am also not sure if bleach will make the container inhabitable for the next colony.

PS: Sorry for my English, it isn't my native language

Couldn't you just fill the container with plain ol water and wait until they drown?

Or douse it in gasoline and set it on fire

The problem with plain water is that some of them might survive due to the breathing holes on top of the container, plus all the eggcrates and organic matter inside could provide air pockets

Well we all know nuclear science won't help. Hahah

But anyway if say you had a fair idea with starting a new one. However the real question is what are you going to do about keeping the invader out of the new colony?

Okay, I have done this -- had a few thousand feeders in huge bin -- and grain mite infestation. Plus, I had too many feeders period. They breed like crazy!
I used what we call a contractor's black bag -- tough enough to withstand a few nails, etc. My feeders needed culling anyway, and the grain mites were good excuse. I slipped the huge black bag over the whole bin (lid off) and dumped all into it -- eggcrates too -- the works. I shook bag hard so everything went to bottom of bag, and the twisted bag top multiple time to prevent escapes. I had one escape and the cat nabbed it. Thankfully. I was able to fit whole bag (with crates) inside my upright freezer on a shelf (bin would have been too big). I left a couple days in freezer, took outside (paranoid) and sprayed some Raid poison in bag before retwisting tightly and discarding in outside trash.
I am sorry you need to cull.
I do not recommend regular garbage bag because it's not thick enough -- I sorta had to push and shape mine to fit into freezer -- I didn't need any puncture holes!
I still feel bad over my experience but at the time I felt it had to be done. Good luck.

I'd recommend taking out all the roaches you want and separating them then pouring a couple bottles of acetone nail polish remover into the bin and sealing off the air holes with tape. Then just leave it for a day or two. Acetone fumes kill insects fast and are used to kill insects for pinning. Also after washing the bin there will be no residual acetone, it evaporates.

The invaders got in there by sheer bad luck, it was pest free for nearly 6 months. Those are some really nice suggestions! Thanks guys. But for my colony size I think the Acetone approach would work, I cant seem to find a thicker trashbag around the house. Im planning on culling the colony next week so I still have some time to think how i'll do it

I'd just love to expound my knowledge of nasty chemicals and mass extermination here. But I won't.

The Snark said:

I'd just love to expound my knowledge of nasty chemicals and mass extermination here. But I won't.

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But I only wanted to perform ethnic cleansing and eugenics! hahahaha

I'm going to take a wild guess, check out Surinam cockroach introduced here, do you think that might be it? Roaches from N. America don't tend to take over like you're saying here. The Surinam will for sure though, they are crazy reproducers. They took over my hisser container. I had 1000s of hissers, ended up with about 15 left before I finally changed everything out. Now I have 1000s of hissers again but it took a long time to get them going again. I was feeding out the Surinams but they were out-producing demand over here, hate those things now. It just takes one to fly in and land in a container like that, they are parthenogenetic. Sorry no suggestion about how to fix the problem but IDing the roach may help you out later.

I am preparing to cull again..... imagine when these pinheads reach adult size.....



They are getting a couple cups of food daily and a whole bag of spring green lettuce mixture, carrots -- still eating cardboard. And making a mess so overcrowded. It's either start 3 or 4 more bins or cull.
(sigh)

This is like 1/4 of total bin in view, and remember MOST are int he egg crates, not on top in the open.
Thousands of 'em.... and they will each grow to full size.

(Also, re: 'climbing thread' -- note NONE are climbing walls)

@Galapoheros: Nope, they arent Surinam cockroach. They look like american cockroaches but I cant be sure if it is the correct species, and since american roaches are common here in the PH they are my best guess.

@Ellenantula: So sorry to hear that, I still have not opened my bin (its been 4 days) since I am busy. I did what Scorpling suggested and poured 3 small bottles of nail polish remover in my 100L bin(dont know if it was enough though) and sealed all the breathing holes, to make sure no air comes in I taped all of them and places a trash bag over the lid. What method are you using now to perform the cull? Have you tried selling some of them off so not all is wasted? I half of what I was able to save for a good amount of cash

Orelix said:

@Ellenantula: So sorry to hear that, I still have not opened my bin (its been 4 days) since I am busy. I did what Scorpling suggested and poured 3 small bottles of nail polish remover in my 100L bin(dont know if it was enough though) and sealed all the breathing holes, to make sure no air comes in I taped all of them and places a trash bag over the lid. What method are you using now to perform the cull? Have you tried selling some of them off so not all is wasted? I half of what I was able to save for a good amount of cash

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I hate chemicals. I bagged them and froze them. Tomorrow is garbage day, I will take out the bags and may open and spray some Raid inside -- just to be sure -- and let them go to the dump.
I was a bit bummed. I had to cull thousands of B lats and hundreds of crix.
In the future, I won't wait until I have quite so many. I feel so mean to kill of 9/10s of them. There were hundreds of ooths destroyed too.