Discoids

[girlsfavtoy]

How do you tell the male and females apart? Are the females larger than the males?

And also how do you tell if the female is gravid? Is the abdomend unusally plump?

Thanks.

 

[Ecilious]

As far as I know it's the same with all cockroaches:

you have to look at the last segment on the underside of the abdomen. If its a large single plate it a female, if it's made of several small plates it's a male.

If discoids are anything like deathsheads the males will be more active than the females and will flutter about if given something to jump off of.

As for telling if they're pregnant, I can't help ya, but the gestation is short so you'll know soon enough.

 

[girlsfavtoy]

Cool, thanks for the answers

 

[girlsfavtoy]

Anyone know how offen Discoids or roaches in general eat? Mine does not seem to be eating.

 

[Aquanut]

I started with 15 discoids, it didn't seem like they ate but i think it was just not noticable. Once the colony got bigger it was much more apparent. They also ate more when the temp went from 70-75 to 80-85 F.

 

[girlsfavtoy]

I've also started with 15 discoid adults, 11 of them are female i believe, most of them i think are gravid and one already gave birth one day after i recieved them.

How big is your colony now and how long did it take?

 

[Aquanut]

I've got abut 200 adults and who knows how many nymphs after about 1.5 years. I have been feeding off nymphs fairly heavily for most of that time so the colony hasn't got as big as i would like. I need to leave it alone for a while. Becuase of that i don't have a real good answer. During the time i have had them i havn't always had great conditions for them. Temp, water, and food and my time have been limiting factors many times. I have started to spend more time with them as i get more addicted as well as to cheap to keep buying worms. I have found through trial and error that offering a variety of dry foods is best. I try to keep 3 kinds at once in there enclosurer at all times. When one kind runs out i replace it with something different. If they won't eat one kind i quit using it. They also seem to be more excited about something new when its first introrduced, but some types are just eaten better. I offer finely ground cat and dog food tryig different kinds, ground chicken scratch, and fish food, either flakes or ground pellets (some say they won't eat fish flakes but mine seem to eat some types very well). I allways finely grine course or hard foods in an old blender.

I had been using a sponge in a shallow container for water. They tend to get nasty and stink, not very healthy. I resisted trying watersorb because i thought it would be more of an expense. I finally ordered a few ounces for James at Blaberus. I am amazed how far it goes.

Last winter i had slow growth with them out in the garage (not allowed in the house) I had a heat lamp with infared bulbs inside the tub and covered with a lid, i had a hard time keeping a constant temperature and worried about having lamps in a plastic tub near paper egg cartons. It gets very warm in my garage in the summer and very cold in the winter. This summer the garagae stayed mostly from 75 to 85 and i had some great growth. I am shooting for about 85 or about 80-90 if there are warm and cool spots in the enclosure. I had it suggested to use heating pads under the tub but they were expensive at the local pet store. I am currently looking at alternitives. One was to use heat tape for Home Depot, or looking online for bargains. i also might build a small enclosure and put a small thermostaticly controlled heater i have in it. Sorry to be so chatty, hope this helps.

Glen

 

[Aquanut]

I also have have gotten better about offering produce, at least twice a week and take out the uneaten portion in a couple of days so it won't mold. Not usually a problem if they like it. Just make sure you rinse it well since most produce has been treated with something.

 

[KJE]

I started with 18 adults and 2 almost adults back in Feb. of this year. I have fed off a lot of them and given some of them away to a friend to help her start a colony. I now have about 300 or so. That's with keeping temps between 74 and 78 degrees during the day. I feed crushed dog food and various fruits/vegetables. I use water bites for their water. I bought the water bites from a garden supply store. I got 1 pound of crystals for $15. All I can say is that this stuff goes a LONG way!

 

[cacoseraph]

I also have have gotten better about offering produce, at least twice a week and take out the uneaten portion in a couple of days so it won't mold. Not usually a problem if they like it. Just make sure you rinse it well since most produce has been treated with something.

heh, i at least 9*decimated a colony of Lobsters not cleaning them up properly :wall:

now i have all of my roaches (Mad. hissers, Lobsters, Orange-Heads, and Discoids) all together.

The hissers and lobsters got along perfectly... the hissers are producing young and everything

I just recently added the Orange-heads and discoids... should be interesting to see what happens

 

[girlsfavtoy]

Cool, thanks for the long detailed reply

I have my starter in a 18L Sterlite bin, with 4 1/2' x 10' motel made out of pizza box strips hot glued together

Those water crystals seems like a good idea, so far i only offer fruit/veggie in one dish, one dish of water, bran and grounded grain formula. They seem to only start eating around 10-11pm for some reason and not before.

Also had another birth yesterday . So far so good. Thanks for the awesome info.

 

[Aquanut]

Only one thing that i would change. Bran and grain have to little protein. They need a much higher protein diet. Thats why you will hear so many people using cat food. Even most dog food isnt very high unless its puppy food. I believe there is a higher chance of canabalism and i'm sure its growth limiting if low. I heard of people feeding cooked hamburger as a treat. I tried some leftover meat loaf, it was gone in 2 hours, better than i did with it. Things like this and fresh fruits are a good way to know if conditions are good. If they are happy and healthy they will come running for such treats.

 

[girlsfavtoy]

Cool, I'll go get some cat food, was goign to before hand, but being lazy and all. Thanks again

 

[siliconthoughts]

This may be more than you wanted to know, but I already typed it:

I've taken to offering dogfood as a staple (not ground, I just grab a handful from the bin and throw it in periodically) Then I supplement with table scraps (peas, green beans, grapes, carrots and melon are all eaten) Banana gets mushy too fast. Mine don't seem to like watermelon much. Don't overdo the food, take out what they don't eat or it will attract fruit flys.

The adults actually eat very little, it's the nymphs that chow down.
I keep mine in a five gallon bucket with a lot of vertical climbing area (hardboard plates separated by a couple nuts on threaded rods) This makes cleaning easy, because the roaches all stay in the frame so I can pick it out set it aside in a spare rubbermaid flat and then clean the bucket. There is a regular people heat pad taped to one side of the bucket, but it has been off for the summer. Temps 75-85 in the day, 65-75 at night.

The nymphs I separate out as they are born (I keep a small dish of bran, and the babies all hide in it. Sifting through a 1/8" mesh quickly separates them out to go in the grow out bucket) Since I was curious about reproduction rates I was tracking the population, and 48 adults produced over a thousand nymphs in the six months I tracked it. In that time I had ONE adult fatality. Now at nine months the largest nymphs are just starting to molt into adults. A bucket with a thousand roaches in it is not something I ever want my wife to see, so these are all out of sight in the garage.

I think the gender difference is fairly obvious - the females to me are obviously bigger - generally their abdoben extends beyond their wings, while the males are smaller and their abdomen is coverd by their wings. As nymphs you have to look pretty closely at the abdominal plates as mentioned above.

Colin

 

[girlsfavtoy]

Cool, thanks for even more info .

Yeah i've also notice how the female and males defer in discoids.

Guess all i have left to do is..... wait

 

[hemingway]

feeding question

Hi there guys. I too am starting out on a discoid adventure, or rather started last January, bulding my colony up. All the basic info I have gleaned on this site has been helpful, and I have a burgeoning and healthy colony. I have had trouble finding much info about the next stage in my colony's life -- the feeding part. Just a couple questions for those more learned than myself:

At what size (of colony) is it best to start separating into multiple colonies? Thus far, I just have a very large rubbermaid filled will vertically-arranged egg flats. It doesn't seem TOO crowded, but I want to make sure that I am breeding in the most efficient manner. I have heard that somewhat crowded conditions are good for roach reproduction, so I just wanted to know what indicators folks use before starting offshoot colonies

The big question -- how do I gauge when I can safely feed off the colony, and how do I do so in a responsible manner? I have six bearded dragons, and five small slings, and I am hoping that this colony will eventually feed everybody. Over the life of the colony, I have purchased a total of 250 adults, and I have LOTS of babies as well as newly molted adults, so the colony is becoming fairly productive. Should I have a base group of breeders separated off somewhere, and feed a ratio of their offspring? Any suggestions what the magic ratio might be, or how many breeders I need to keep around for the feeding needs I described? I'm just really paranoid that in my zealousness for cricket freedom (you can imagine how hard the last six months have been) I would feed off too many of my roaches and do irreparable harm to the productive potential of my colony.

If anybody can help me out with suggestions, I would be forever in your debt.

Kris

 

[xelda]

Kris, you could go ahead and split your colony up now. Have one be your original self-sustaining colony, and then have a secondary colony to feed out of. That way, if you feed too much out of the secondary colony, you'll have your original colony to replenish it. In my opinion, you'll be ready to start feeding out the roaches when you have a ton of adults in both colonies.

 

[siliconthoughts]

If you split out all your nymphs from your adults, you can feed off the nymphs without any downside. The colony won't grow, but with 250 adults you are going to be producing on the order of 25-60 nymphs a day, if your discoids produce like mine. As long as you feed only the larger nymphs to your dragons I think you already have a colony sufficient to feed all of your animals (I don't have dragons, but I'm guessing they won't eat more than 4 large nymphs each daily). To keep a fairly stable population, figure that your adults will live about a year, so let about 1/12 of the adult population size of your largest nymphs escape from the predators each month into the breeder population. If your nymph group starts getting diminished, then you don't have quite enough breeders so move a few more large nymphs over. If you end up with extra adults in the nymph group, then you have surplus to share.

Colin