B. lateralis stink?

[padkison]

My colony of B. lateralis stink. Anyone else have this problem? I keep about 300 in a 3g tote on eggcrates. Feeding high quality puppy food and veggies and using water crystals. No molding or rotting food involved. I have also noticed that these roaches leave a sticky residue on your hands that smells. Good feeders though.

They are on the same diet as my 300 colony hissers and the hissers do not stink at all.

I have a small colony of about 20 discoids and handfuls of other roaches which do not stink either, but these are small colonies.

BTW - see my classified on trading the other roaches and/or hissers for discoids

 

[John J Starr Jr]

Odor

My colony of B. lateralis stink. Anyone else have this problem? I keep about 300 in a 3g tote on eggcrates.

Just one thing that may be it and this is only an OPINION of mine. You typed 3g which if you mean that as 3 gallons then that is extremely tiny for 300 roaches even if they are around 1 inch long. I use 20 gallon longs for mine and they will get crouded before long as my conolnies approach 2000.

JMHO

John J Starr Jr

 

[RoachmanDan]

Just one thing that may be it and this is only an OPINION of mine. You typed 3g which if you mean that as 3 gallons then that is extremely tiny for 300 roaches even if they are around 1 inch long. I use 20 gallon longs for mine and they will get crouded before long as my conolnies approach 2000.

JMHO

John J Starr Jr

Ditto on the previous post. 3 gallon is way too small to be breeding any roaches in. I use 40 gallon rubbermaid containers. I don't know about the smell though. My containers are packed top to bottom side to side with b lateralis and I don't smell any strong odors. Most peoples dogs smell worse than my roaches.

My 2 cents worth...

Dan Haas
www.Crunchy-Critters.com

 

[Dom]

Yeah my lateralis smell too. My dubias don't though.

 

[james]

smell

That is funny because my lateralis never smell, but I have 15 bins of hissers and they always have an odor. Just goes to show you that we all smell different things. Like orange heads don't bother me, but some people can't stand them. One thing for sure I've never heard of any dubia smell. Try a different substrate on the lateralis. I just switched to vermiculite and I really like it.
James
www.blaberus.com

 

[padkison]

Moving the roaches to a 14g bin and vermiculite.

Thanks

 

[i-zombie]

Any way you slice it, lateralis have a bad oder to me.

 

[Scolopendra55]

I thought lateralis was suppodsed to be an odorless roach?

 

[DoubleD's]

Why they stink

This is the reason your laterallis stink.
Your feeding Dog food... Dog food contains traces of meat and meat when digested stinks, If you dont believe me have a big steak dinner and see what your excrements smell like in 24 hours. Your laterallis are simply excreting the meat enzimes from the dog food and when that decays you get the nasty smell.
I personally have 2 laterallis colonies numbering in the 50-100 thousand range and you know what i feed them? HERE IS THE KEY TO RAISING LATERALLIS, THEY EAT BANANNAS, thats how professional breeders raise these little beauties, with banannas.

You need to consider that you are what you eat and if 300 guys eat steak for dinner, then the outcome will be very beefey if you get my drift.

Sincerely
Dexter D
Double D's
www.doubleds.org

P.s
"Ask as man questions as you can before you buy a new species, no question is a stupid question and the more you know the better of you will be when you get them home, and become a breeder yourself."

Quote By
Dexter D

 

[padkison]

I will try removing the dogfood.

My hisser colony eats the dogfood without stinking. I tend to give them more veggies than then lateralis though.

 

[Dom]

I find the stink is also related to humidity. Some days they stink and sometimes they don't depending on the humidity in the cage.

 

[RoachmanDan]

I find the stink is also related to humidity. Some days they stink and sometimes they don't depending on the humidity in the cage.

I dissagree, but then again there seemes to be a lot of disagreements here on this topic of roaches stinking. So what the hell, how about another pint to argue :wall:

I keep and entire room full of roaches (wall to wall, floor to ceiling) and I maintain the humidity level in the 45 to 50% range with a humidifier. I have little to no odor unless I'm hovering my nose right over the egg crate. Unless your humidity level is exeeding 50% I personaly wouldn't see it being a contributing factor. But that's my opinion... Any humidity levels over 50% would contribute to mold and mildew build up and that would cause a bad odor, especialy if the fecal matter is overly damp.

Dan H.
www.Crunchy-Critters.com

 

[John J Starr Jr]

Multiple reasons...

Hey, since everyone has some very good opinions then it just may possibly be a combination of many things together such as diet, humidity, tempurature, and overcrouding that is causing the high odor level.

My Blaptica dubia love the he!! out of high quality and high priced dried dogfood with lamb meal in the dogfood design. They do give off an odor if you disturb them then get right over them and inhale. That odor is very low in intensity and difficult to describe but it is (((not_rank))) like the cricket odor can get in just a few days with 3000 1/2_inchers in a 30L gallon aquarium filled with egg flats. I now have two seperate Blaptica dubia colonies which are getting close to hitting around 2000 adults/nymphs in each.

All of my Blaberus species have a simular odor that I would call a very sharp musky smell. This is only when you disturb the entire colony and again you must be right over the cage and inhale to catch it. They do nibble at the dried dogfood but they seem to prefer romaine lettuce, carrots, oranges, apples, and such. The Blaberus genus seem to be more of a herbivore or plant eating type animal IMHO. My Blaberus discoidalis colony is now well over 1000 and growing.

I would have to say that all of the species of roach that I have are VERY LOW ODOR species if even that, and mine do have plenty of space with no overcrouding. The humidity level is now at 42% and it is raining very heavy at the moment. It will drop down into the 20% to 30% area after it stops raining so I spray the inside glass of my cages every 2 or 3 days after I feed them.

John J Starr Jr
.

 

[Dom]

I dissagree, but then again there seemes to be a lot of disagreements here on this topic of roaches stinking. So what the hell, how about another pint to argue :wall:

Dan H.
www.Crunchy-Critters.com

I'm not talking about arguing, more about discussing the topic .

 

[guitarlust]

i have had no odor, so far. i am looking forward to when they finally start breeding. i have a few that should be reaching maturity soon. i feed mine fish flakes and i throw in some vegetables and fruits once or twice a week for good measure.