Giant Madagascar Cockroaches and enclosure size?

[marti]

Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches and enclosure size?

Hi folks, new to the site, we're planning to get two, at least, giant Madagascar cockroaches (adult) and we're trying figure out what size of enclosure we would need to get them so they would be nice and comfortable. We are total newbies to this. We were thinking about a praying mantis but a little complicated with the food supply issue, or some type of stick insect but again, the proper leaves may not be available in our area, so we settled on giant fruit and veg eating cockroaches.

Hopefully I can post links here as a newbie, this is enclosure we are thinking about, does it seem ok or is it too small? It's 24cm (L), 18CM (W), 7cm (H) The breeder we would be buying from has said "Hissers can grow to 9 or even 10cm not including their antenna which can be a further 7cm".

By the way, does anyone have these type of cockroaches, how "friendly" or sociable are they? I heard they don't bite but can squirt some type of staining liquid on you but I guess they only do this if highly stressed or manhandled? Also heard that if you get two males they may have headbutting competitions so would a male and female or two females be better and less stressful for them I wonder? Wouldn't want to just get one as it may be too solitary and lonely for the cockroach. Thanks.

 

[asiletto]

I think 7cm height is not enough, I keep mine in a 30x30x20h setup, with the top 5 cm brushed with vaseline oil/paste to prevent escapes, they are excellent climbers.

I suggest to buy a small group (especially if you want to breed them) of 5 at least, roaches are social animals and it's very interesting to see how they interact with each other; also keep them at around 28-30°C.

The males fight and hiss at each other but in a colony usually there is one dominant male and other satellites males. Give them a lot of different hiding places.

You can keep them in a "sterile" terrarium with only cardboard tubes and no substrate, or better in a natural terrarium with some substrate, dead leaves, maybe a big log in the middle where they can climb on. In the latter case you must keep the terrarium clean of old food to prevent mites infestation.

They are easy to handle and I have never seen them squirt liquid, although they do run and jump in the void sometimes. They dont like being handled however, showing their annoyance hissing .

This is one of my males eating an orange, as you can see the antennae are a bit damaged from the fights but it's normal.

 

[Tongue Flicker]

I keep mine on a 2.5 gal glass tank for better viewing. Furnished with some barks set to the side, a centerpiece wood and a lot of scattered dried leaves on top of a 2" coco fiber substrate. They like climbing and moving around. 2 males on a small container will chase at each other. I always keep 1 adult male and 4 adult females. I use their young to feed some of my scorpions.

Never heard of the squirting thing. You sure those are not lobster roaches?

 

[JZC]

They tend to be very docile. Great insect pet, IME if you handle them frequently they become accustomed to it and stop hissing*.

*the sound is really cool though!

 

[Forcep]

They are very docile, tolerant but apparently don't enjoy handling; I don't handle them much. They are communal so you can keep quite a lot of them together; males will fight and get slightly injured over time, but that's nothing serious to worry about.