# Hissing cockroach molted or sick?



## suzuran0000 (Apr 16, 2018)

Hello! I had no luck googling this question, so I figured I'd come here to ask. I have some hissing cockroaches I personally rescued from a feeder cage my dad has for his bird eating spider. Everything seems to be going well, I lurked a lot of threads on this forum and was successful at keeping them pretty happy for this past few months.

Straight to my question, I noticed that one of my hissers is significantly paler than she used to me. I assume maybe she molted and I had missed it, but a quick check around the cage shows no shell. I didn't do a thorough check, because I noticed as I was throwing some food in their cage and they were all eating so I decided I'd just check in the morning, but the thought is in the back of my mind. Any explanation?

I'd like to note that when I saw her, she wasn't hiding in the log with the others. She was laying on the food dish, and I assumed something bad had happened, but then she just walked back to her log as she always does. Aside from that one experience when I found her color like this, there are no behavioral changes.

Another thing I'd like to add in is last week I did clean the entire cage because I found very small white bugs crawling around the dirt. I wasn't sure if they were harmful so I changed it, cleaned the cage and briefly rinsed the roaches under water. They didn't seem really fazed or bothered by any of this at the time or after.


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 16, 2018)

UPDATE: i did not find any molted shell in their cage, but now I've noticed that his exoskeleton looks somewhat flimsy and the hood part has flipped back. It shows in the photo. PLEASE help, what is wrong? Is he about to molt and theres just complications?


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## Nir Avraham (Apr 16, 2018)

If it did shed, it will turn more brown after few hours...


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 16, 2018)

Nir Avraham said:


> If it did shed, it will turn more brown after few hours...


Thank you for a response! I'm sure it didn't molt because there was no shell. But I noticed recently that it's exoskeleton hood-part is flipped backwards. I'm not sure what this means..


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## Nir Avraham (Apr 16, 2018)

When you use substrate for cockroaches, you usually are not going to find any remaining of the shed...
Wait another 3-4 hours, and then send here another picture of it...


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 16, 2018)

Nir Avraham said:


> When you use substrate for cockroaches, you usually are not going to find any remaining of the shed...
> Wait another 3-4 hours, and then send here another picture of it...


EDIT: i pulled its log out of the cage and it crawled out and drank water. here is a photo of it in the light. Note how her exoskeleton looks folded over


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 16, 2018)

Attaching another photo of the same hissing cockroach next to one of my others, who all seem to be perfectly happy and fine.


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## Nir Avraham (Apr 17, 2018)

It's looks like it didn't shed. I've no idea what can cause that to happen...
Keep an eye on him for the nest few days.


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## Trincess (Apr 17, 2018)

Ok so here is my two pence worth. I keep hissers. I found a pale hisser among mine a month or two ago. It looked like it was missing bits also. I separated it from the others into a separate container but continued to offer food etc. It died after like three days so I think it was definitely sick. If I was you I would isolate that hisser from the others. Btw. I don’t know what caused it. It only happened once and all the others were fine.

Reactions: Helpful 1


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 17, 2018)

Trincess said:


> Ok so here is my two pence worth. I keep hissers. I found a pale hisser among mine a month or two ago. It looked like it was missing bits also. I separated it from the others into a separate container but continued to offer food etc. It died after like three days so I think it was definitely sick. If I was you I would isolate that hisser from the others. Btw. I don’t know what caused it. It only happened once and all the others were fine.





Nir Avraham said:


> It's looks like it didn't shed. I've no idea what can cause that to happen...
> Keep an eye on him for the nest few days.


Thanks so much guys  I'll definitely keep an eye on her and put her in her own little container. So sad because she was completely fine just a couple days ago


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## PidderPeets (Apr 17, 2018)

suzuran0000 said:


> Attaching another photo of the same hissing cockroach next to one of my others, who all seem to be perfectly happy and fine.


How long has it been like that? Without any context, I'd say it does look freshly molted, and it's just starting to harden up. My hissers usually eat their molts, so that could be why you can't find a molt. As for the carapace, that could have happened when it molted. The body is soft and malleable and it's easy for things to go awry. It could have gotten folded over somehow when molting. If it's behaving normally and is eating, it's probably fine.



Trincess said:


> Ok so here is my two pence worth. I keep hissers. I found a pale hisser among mine a month or two ago. It looked like it was missing bits also. I separated it from the others into a separate container but continued to offer food etc. It died after like three days so I think it was definitely sick. If I was you I would isolate that hisser from the others. Btw. I don’t know what caused it. It only happened once and all the others were fine.


Did that hisser ever darken before it died? To me, that also looks like it was freshly molted, just further along afterwards than the OP's. To me that looks like either a bad molt or that it got munched on by it's cage-mates. I've had a living, freshly molted hisser nearly 100% devoured by its cage-mates before. The only reason I can't say 100% is because I managed to save a single leg to feed to a sling. I've also had roaches that were munched on only a little bit that survived, but were missing bits of their sides, similar to in your picture, but not as bad. So it could have possibly gotten eaten by the other roaches and succumbed to its injuries.


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## Trincess (Apr 18, 2018)

PidderPeets said:


> How long has it been like that? Without any context, I'd say it does look freshly molted, and it's just starting to harden up. My hissers usually eat their molts, so that could be why you can't find a molt. As for the carapace, that could have happened when it molted. The body is soft and malleable and it's easy for things to go awry. It could have gotten folded over somehow when molting. If it's behaving normally and is eating, it's probably fine.
> 
> 
> 
> Did that hisser ever darken before it died? To me, that also looks like it was freshly molted, just further along afterwards than the OP's. To me that looks like either a bad molt or that it got munched on by it's cage-mates. I've had a living, freshly molted hisser nearly 100% devoured by its cage-mates before. The only reason I can't say 100% is because I managed to save a single leg to feed to a sling. I've also had roaches that were munched on only a little bit that survived, but were missing bits of their sides, similar to in your picture, but not as bad. So it could have possibly gotten eaten by the other roaches and succumbed to its injuries.


My little hisser didn’t darken up and I’m not sure that it ate again either. Then it died. But it sure did look like it had been munched on. How is the hisser now @suzuran0000


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 18, 2018)

PidderPeets said:


> How long has it been like that? Without any context, I'd say it does look freshly molted, and it's just starting to harden up. My hissers usually eat their molts, so that could be why you can't find a molt. As for the carapace, that could have happened when it molted. The body is soft and malleable and it's easy for things to go awry. It could have gotten folded over somehow when molting. If it's behaving normally and is eating, it's probably fine.


THANK YOU for responding!
Actually, I've come back to mention that it has darkened, and is somewhat more active than it was. When I made this thread, it had been that way for roughly a day, but I hadn't seen it for about 2 days, so I can't say exactly when it happened. But it was a sort of caramel color, and then 2 days later it was pale and lethargic.

I've been letting them out to crawl around (I only have 3) and this morning when I went to change their food out, I noticed she was crawling on her log and significantly darker! Shell is still weirdly folded over, but from what I can tell it doesn't seem to bother her, because when I touched it with my finger it didn't react at all. Here is the photo from this morning. Would this folded shell cause any complications that I should know about? Or is it just something that happens?


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 27, 2018)

With a heavy heart i regret to inform everyone, that hisser just passed away tonight. She was on a log being fine last night, and today after work she buried herself in a corner and was reddish and limp. I'm not sure what that means, but I'm devastated.


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## Sarkhan42 (Apr 28, 2018)

Very odd, perhaps some mutation that caused Bursicon(the hormone involved in sclerotization) deficiency? It simply seems as if the poor thing was unable to sclerotize in a normal fashion after a molt and after a while just took a critical beating from normal activity.

note: They commonly consume sheds for the protein, so in a colony I wouldn't be surprised to not find the exoskeleton


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## suzuran0000 (Apr 28, 2018)

Sarkhan42 said:


> Very odd, perhaps some mutation that caused Bursicon(the hormone involved in sclerotization) deficiency? It simply seems as if the poor thing was unable to sclerotize in a normal fashion after a molt and after a while just took a critical beating from normal activity.
> 
> note: They commonly consume sheds for the protein, so in a colony I wouldn't be surprised to not find the exoskeleton


Thank you for the response, at least she's out of her misery now. The past couple weeks she acted more or less normal but looked pale and had crooked antennae. I'm happy to say at least my others seem completely healthy, and growing!

EDIT: I was wondering if you knew why she was somewhat bright reddish when I found her dead? Is that part of decomposition? She was her normal pale-colored the day before.


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## Sarkhan42 (Apr 28, 2018)

suzuran0000 said:


> Thank you for the response, at least she's out of her misery now. The past couple weeks she acted more or less normal but looked pale and had crooked antennae. I'm happy to say at least my others seem completely healthy, and growing!
> 
> EDIT: I was wondering if you knew why she was somewhat bright reddish when I found her dead? Is that part of decomposition? She was her normal pale-colored the day before.


I’m not quite sure honestly, if you had taken a photo that might help but otherwise I would probably atribute it to decomposition, thought a bright red is a little strange.


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## poeseewi (May 20, 2020)

This is interesting. I have Madagascar Hissers since 1998 and have had a weird, bad, adult molt in 2 of my females. This is the first time this has occurred. The first one died, The photo is of second female.I believe the dog food may be the culprit. Because of Covid, my supplier of roach food was temporarily closed, so I supplemented with dog food. The dog food is gone and I will try to remember to report results.


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