Am I Just Lucky??

[chelle_barrett]

I purchased roaches, oh let's see, August of last year. One of them was pregnant when she arrived and I soon had little roachlettes. So, my roachlettes have grown and now I think I have what are called nymphs. They live in a tupperware container and have egg crate, water crystals and whatever food I put in there for them - they seem to love fruity Cheerios. They sit on my kitchen counter and the temp in my house is kept at 71 degrees. The other day I was giving them more food and I had a whole bunch of new little babies. Apparently they are still breeding and doing they're thing.

I'm just curious because everyone else has these elaborate set ups for breeding and I don't do anything. Am I just lucky that they keep reproducing without any husbandry? My dragon has decided that he'd rather have them as pets, than eat them. He lets them crawl around, maybe will lick them and then just goes about his business. I'm also thinking I may need to start putting them in a larger container, because I can't stand the thought of killing them. So basically, we have roaches as pets along with everything else. Is that weird?

 

[diggerdrake]

roaches are prolific breeders and even with the minimal set-up they will still strive. the higher temps (90+)will have them breeding faster. I started with dubia and moved to having some hissers as pets. I like the dubia and treat them more like pets than feeders. all the hype of keeping perfect set-ups for dubia is more for mass production of feeders and they will still produce even in the lower temps just not as quickly. now it seems as if you are free of buying that type of feeders. if you find yourself with so many roaches there are other options than just offing them. you could give them to friends or sell them to people looking for a supplement to their colonies or even find a local herp rescue and donate them. or you can box some up and send them to me. my little girl loves her roaches and gobbles between 20-30 a day along with 10 supers a day.

 

[Monkey]

Im sorry but this thread had me giggeling..

That sounds cute...

However people would KILL me if I brought home roaches here and tried to breed them.. *lol*

 

[patrickb]

That's probably one of the best reasons roaches make such great feeders. They will breed in less than optimal conditions. The setups you have seen before are mainly for maximized production and ease of maintenance and cleaning. You could throw them in a small margarine container and breed them as well, though it wouldn't be very efficient. Your setup sounds about right though and with temps closer to 90 degrees they would be breeding like mad.

 

[chelle_barrett]

Well, I just saw another one airing out an egg sack, so I guess there will be more babies! I need to set myself up a roach condo complete with nursery.

 

[lacy_black]

:lol: I have dubia's that are pets, they're actually fun to handle and theyre pretty calm about it now. I let their bin cool down some so the breeding has slowed nicely so I don't get over run.