Not just any roaches, Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches--3 inches long. No, I did not just toss one in live! I cut it up and offered Darcy a section (legs still moving!) He SNATCHED it and wolfed it down like he was starving (Darcy is currently in apparent remission from lymphoma, and weighs 175-180gm.)
The local farm store special ordered them at $3 apiece. I got enough to try starting a modest farm, as I've raised many generations of wax worms, mealworms and silkworms.
If you've never dissected a live cockroach with a paring knife, you're not missing much. Only for someone I REALLY love would I even handle these revolting bugs.
Donna.....more power to you girlfriend. I LOVEEEE my suggies, but we'd have to find something else to eat. I couldn't cut up your normal, every day itty, bitty southern cockroaches, much less one that is 3 inches long and is going to HISS at me.....OMG.....SHUDDER!!! You're my new hero!!
Eww! It's not the cutting up that has me in such awe - you are going to raise them? You are deliberately going to welcome a colony of yucky, giant, hissing cockroaches into your home? This really takes the glideritis prize.
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />Very impressive, I really don't think I could handle that <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />, mealworms are bad enough.
yes, they are perfectly fine to feed <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/agree.gif" alt="" />
They're in a 10-gallon aquarium with Vaseline smeared across the top three inches of glass, plus there's a fine-mesh metal lid with a huge book on top. I really, REALLY don't want them escaping. Yes, they hiss loudly when picked up or disturbed. If anyone recalls Tony (Snakeman) here, he used to raise Hissers, and his glider Bull would eat them "with elan." He's the one who imparted the particularly icky information that these cockroaches give LIVE BIRTH. Ewwwwwww
WOW, I hand you the award ! I haven't introduced mealies to my sugar plum yet but even that is [censored] me out. There is NO WAY I will ever touch a roach - VOMITS -
Now I wish we could get them here, but alas, they are illegal in FL. . . hissing cockroaches have LIVE birth?? WOw--bet that is a sight! Donna--you have to post some picts of Lord Darcy eating his newest fav!
How long is the breeding period? do you have males and females or one male and many females?? Etc, what all goes into raising them?
Eh, I just learned something today. I thought roaches were not to be given to gliders - don't remember where I read that, but it was on my 'not go give' list. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nixweiss.gif" alt="" />
Anne-Lise, it might be that most of us call the exterminator when we see roaches, and so the caution is to never feed critters we find around the house and yard because of chemicals. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/nixweiss.gif" alt="" />
Forever owned in my heart by my "Eight is Enough" colony:
Yes, you can easily tell males from females, as the males have "horns." I have four females and currently three males, but promised one of the males to a friend's possum <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
I'm glad you've discovered how great they are as feeders, Saharanfox! Continue to spread the word! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yelclap.gif" alt="" />
[:"green"]Donna, you have long been my hero because of everything you've done with Darcy before this... but now you're my SuperHero! Wowsers! Cockroaches?!? ***shudders*** I get the heeby-jeebies just looking at live mealies (I freeze them as soon as they arrive via FedEx), I can't imagine feeding roaches! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" /> P.S. Give Lord Darcy smooches for me - he's definitely one of my SuperHeroes, too!!!
That is very interesting. I had never even thought about feeding them roaches. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/yelclap.gif" alt="" /> You are very brave! I see people eat them all the time on Fear Factor. Yuck!
I was considering trying Discoid Roaches for my gliders. A lot of people on a reptile forum that I frequent feed them to their leopard geckos and other lizards. They are supposedly much more nutritious than mealies and crickets and have a higher meat to shell ratio. They are also much easier to breed. I hate picking out all the eating size mealies every couple of weeks and crickets stink. They don't get as big as the Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches so you won't have to cut them up either. Don't know if I will be able to talk my wife into letting me intentionally bring roaches into our house though. Lol.
Here is some more info on them and you can buy them from this place too. http://www.discoids.com/
You must really really LOVE your baby to even dream of touching one of those nasty critters. EWWW.... even the thought of them makes me shudder! I dont think I could do it. I'm glad your little one is feeling good enough to enjoy his bugs though.
One more question over here: if I get small ones, could I consider giving it alive? Or do I REALLY have to kill it before <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/worried2.gif" alt="" /> ???
Re: Darcy loves roaches
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#102610 05/19/0612:47 AM05/19/0612:47 AM
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr /> They don't get as big as the Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches so you won't have to cut them up either.
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</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr /> One more question over here: if I get small ones, could I consider giving it alive? Or do I REALLY have to kill it before ???
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Actually, you want to feed the third or fourth instar nymphs, not the full grown adults. They're usually a little over an inch long and very stout, especially around the abdomen. At this age, the exoskeleton is softer, the defensive spines on their legs aren't much of a danger (though wild gliders eat scarab beetles int he wild which have enormous sharp tibial spines), and they are much easier for the gliders to handle live, while still being large enough to make a difference nutritionally and jam pack with nutrients via gut-loading.
You could scald or pre-kill the cockroach prior to feeding, but there really is no need to with the Madagascar hissers, unless you're feeding another more flighty species, e.g. some of the tropical winged species of roaches. The Madagascar hissers actually act more like beetles, and are rather clumsy as they scuttle about slowly. They're in no way as fast and flighty as the pest roaches we have here in North America!
Mikey, I do intend to feed juvenile hissers to the gliders, when I get some. Chopping up the adults is not pleasant.
Julie--whatever those desperate souls may do on Fear Factor, you won't see ME eating these things!
Another creepy cockroach fact: cutting off the head doesn't kill them. In fact, they don't seem to notice. (I don't know how long they can live like that, but it's better than a couple of hours.)
Plus, at night they make all sorts of noises thunking about in their aquarium and hissing at each other, which can give you quite an adrenaline rush until you remember it's just the roaches.
Re: Darcy loves roaches
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#102612 05/26/0610:42 AM05/26/0610:42 AM
<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" /> Ok wheres th epuking smiley he really needs to be here!! I could never in a million years fee my babies a roach. We have water bugs around here and they are gross enough no matter how hard you stomp on them they dont die. As for the roach not dying when you cut its head off? I would just lose my cookies everywhere. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thanx.gif" alt="" /> for the great info though.
Re: Darcy loves roaches
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#102613 05/26/0611:10 AM05/26/0611:10 AM
Eew Eew Eew! I have a hard enough time touching the dead mealies from the can, much less raising and feeding roaches! I agree with everyone else, this one definitely takes the glideritis prize! eeeeew!
Re: Darcy loves roaches
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#102614 05/26/0611:51 AM05/26/0611:51 AM
</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr /> As for the roach not dying when you cut its head off? I would just lose my cookies everywhere.
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Interesting, isn't it? Like most insects, their activity is controlled simply from groupings of nerve cells called a ganglion (as opposed to a single brain like in vertebrates). In the cockroach, their ganglia are distributed throughout the body, and if I remember correctly it runs along the center of the body and ventrally at the abdomen. Thus, if the head should be cut off, then the visual ganglia or head ganglia are removed, but other ganglia within the thorax and abdomen still remain in tact and are fully functional, operating leg movement, breathing, deficating, and even enabling the cockroach to give birth! The cockroach can survive longer than a week like this. They usually die from starvation, if they don't die from excessive hemolymph (what can be called invertebrate blood) loss.