Give up on the roaches?

[CammieNLeno]

Hey everyone! So I had a cricket shortage the other day and couldnt make it to the store in time, so i thought id dive into my turkish roach colony i been working on.. and man... i dunno, thinking of scrapping that idea. Here are my questions/comments/concerns -

1) I bought about 50 at a reptile show a few months ago.. i think it was april or may or something. How many should there be in there creeping up on Aug now? I havent been taking care of them as well as i should i dont think.. i check their food once a week, and make sure that they have water and thats about it. Usually on Friday, they are cleaning up on the rest of the food, and there is a smidge left when i refill. Open the lid to spray some water for humidity every 2-3 days.. Well when I went to get some out for food, just didnt SEEM like more than like 20-30 more? Should I be expecting like, hundreds if not more by now? (First time breeding bugs) I noticed 0 dead roaches.. and a buncha those little casings that the females lay.. but thats it? I assume perhaps i havent been feeding them as well, and they have been eating the babies? Are they cannibalistic like crickets? No idea here what to expect. In my mind i thought that there woulda been a shitload by now, and thats not the case at all. I have them in a large tupperware bin, my guess on the size is about 3x3x2. It is filled with about a dozen egg crates stacked vertically. One thing i noticed is that it looked like there was only a few males and the rest all female? That mean anything?

2) My panther has 0 interest in them.. NONE. I have been trying to feed him about 5 the last week, all varying sizes. I mix them in with my crickets to see if I can trick em into it... but when i come home from work he has cleaned up every cricket and left all the roaches. I have even named the dam things since i see the SAME ones everyday lol. Tried both cup feeding and free range.. doenst even look twice at em.

3) Im still paranoid as shit they are gonna somehow escape and setup shop in the house. This legitimate? I dunno.. just doest seem worth it to me at all.

Anyone feel like they can put some time into any feedback? Not even really sure what im asking for, perhaps im jsut venting out of frustration that the project didnt turn out as well as I had hoped.

 

[dodolah]

some chameleons just don't get crazy over roaches somehow.
I have a veiled that decided to test try couple of them for consecutive 5 days.
After that, zip nada...

won't even look at them and touch them (i had a dubia colony, BTW).
After a while, i got tired trying to coax him to eat them.

I am not that familiar with turkish roaches, but 4 - 5 months should be a good time measurement whether you have a thriving colony or not.
You said it yourself that you haven't been taking care of them that well.
That should explain the slow reproduction rate.

Seriously, if your chameleons never have any interest on roaches, i see little reasons for you to keep the colony (unless, if you decide to breed them and sell them to people).

At the end of the day, i ended up giving away my colony to a member in this forum (plus, i am moving out to a new house and, at that time, I am not so sure my room mate was going to like on the idea of keeping and breeding roaches in the house). Ironically, she turned out to be totally open to it (and even suggested me to get rid of my crickets and breed roaches intead -dayumn, i underestimated her). Maybe, if my baby panther grew up, I will try to breed a colony again.

just my .02

 

[darla]

Well my first question would be how are you keeping them and what kind of temps are they getting? If you keep your house at 60-70 degrees and they have no extra heat that for sure could cause extremely slow breeding. The low temps would also cause the oothecaes (eggs) to take a very long time in hatching. Humidity may also be a problem, they do better with more humidity but not so much to cause mold. I also think but not positive that it takes the ooths a couple of months to hatch. They don't eat as well as other roaches but feeding them better may help.

Now on to your chameleon not liking them, that may be true. I got rid of my turks because of the smell....I didn't like it! They also emit a sticky substance, not a lot and maybe you won't even notice it but I sure did. I hope I helped some.

 

[CammieNLeno]

Thanks for the replies. I guess when i say i dont take very good care of em i mean that i dont utterly baby them like the crickets heh. They get enough food.. and live in the laundry room where its plenty warm. Humidity i dont know about for a %.. i spray inside with the lid open every 2-3 days, but thats probably not enough? Definatly not moldy.

There are a TON of those oothecaes inside the egg crates, so perhaps they all just have to hatch, i dunno.

If he aint gonna eat em, im just gonna get rid of em. Anyone in colorado want em? Joe? Brad?

 

[Brad Ramsey]

Hell No!
Those are nasty ... I gave mine to Matthew Wheelock.
In my opinion they come way to close to being a roach that could cross the line and become a pest.
They're fast too.
If there are a ton of ooths laying around .... you're going to have a ton of roaches soon!
You could probably unload them at the reptile show on the second ... especially if you are just wanting to give them away.

-Brad