Cleaning out roaches

[dolphinsilversea01]

Thats a weird coincidence.. most of mine were female too. Wasn't humid though.. getting very cold!

 

[patrickb]

The two setups you have look fine. I had a very similar experience with another species of roach that had a HUGE die-off after I received them. Ordered 1000, 30+ were dead on arrival, then for the next week and a half I was losing about 10-30 a day. After that period of time, the remaining roaches seemed to be quite healthy and were breeding as normal. Very little die-off after that point. I had another smaller batch of about 50 (just like you) that I ordered from a seperate source and had no deaths in that group, so I originally suspected the roaches I got in on the large order weren't healthy. Either way, I kept removing the dead ones daily and got them well fed and hydrated and now have no problems with that colony.

Keep the dead ones removed, feed and water em good and I think you should be ok. Not knowing how your friend kept them makes me wonder if the ones he/she provided weren't just malnourished or dehydrated and couldn't stand the relocation stress or not. With all of that in mind, the types of deaths are important to determine if this is an "epidemic". Do the roaches have an odd coloration (red or yellow/orange'ish) when dead? Is it only adults, or a mix of different sizes etc...