Hissers as feeders?

eelnoob

Arachnobaron
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Nov 22, 2006
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I'm thinking about ditching my Lobster roach colony and breed one of the larger roach species.


Was just wondering if I was to start breeding Hissers how many do I need to start out with? How fast do they breed and how soon can I start using the colony for feeding? Any infos would be greatly appreciated.


Any good sources for hissers online? I can find them locally but petstores around here want at least 5-6 dollar each.
 

Jesse607

Arachnodemon
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It depends on what you are feeding? From my experience, hissers don't make very good feeders for Tarantulas. Most of my T's will indeed eat them, but about 20-25% of my T's either won't touch them at all, or go through long periods of time refusing to feed on them (but will eat anything else, including other roaches). I have no explanation for why this may occur.
 

eelnoob

Arachnobaron
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oops forgot, I'll be using them to feed my Pixie frogs aka African bullfrogs.
 

8+)

Arachnolord
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My Pac Man didn't like them either. They're just too hard and their legs are too spiny. I don't know much about raising them, but you might be better off with a discoid roach.
 
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cacoseraph

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i have been using them as feeders for well over a year now. i prekill them for everything unless i am in a "risky battle royale" type of mood.

they breed moderately prolifically (not compared to lobs, though) but take a LONG time to mature. i would do both sp. if you could. if you wanted to do just hissers you might need to buy kind of lot initially to be fulling self-sustaining from the get-go, depending on how many bugs/things you are feeding
 

8+)

Arachnolord
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i prekill them for everything unless i am in a "risky battle royale" type of mood.
That brings up the other problem I have with using them as feeders: They seem so intelligent and have so much personality, that it's hard to not consider them another pet. I always felt guilty when I fed them and my son didn't like it either. Now I just keep them.

I know, what a wus! :eek:
 

arachnocat

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It's hard for me to use hissers as feeders too. My first pet bug that I bought was a hisser. I used to take her to school and everything.
Anyway, a friend told me that T's don't like hissers because when they hiss they blow air out and it bothers the T. Makes sense I guess.
 

Stylopidae

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Too high in fat for my liking. B. discoidales is a good feeder.
 

cacoseraph

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Too high in fat for my liking. B. discoidales is a good feeder.
now now chesire... even if we knew the fat content... we don't actually know dietary reqs so it's all guess work. p.s. your avatar looks like me, heh.

if anyone wants to know how to set up an experiment to test which feeder is "better" i would be more than happy to help them. i already have experiments coming out me arse and don't want to do anymore =P
 

padkison

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I used hissers for feeders for about a year. I had a colony of 250 adults and subadults to start. They produced lots of nymphs which made decent feeders for small reptiles, toads, and Ts. Larger hissers were hard for Ts to kill and there was indeed a battle. My hissers also stunk.

I found B. lats to be better
Small nymphs
Move around more
Breed fast
Don't stink as bad

The hissers were nice looking roaches and handleable. However, mine suffered from small size genetics which I did not realize until I saw some others.
 

Stylopidae

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now now chesire... even if we knew the fat content... we don't actually know dietary reqs so it's all guess work. p.s. your avatar looks like me, heh.

if anyone wants to know how to set up an experiment to test which feeder is "better" i would be more than happy to help them. i already have experiments coming out me arse and don't want to do anymore =P
Just stuff I've heard. I'm more a fan of discoids and lobsters than lateralis. I use glasswalkers for arboreals and non climbers for terrestrials.

Caco...I'd guess you look something like Jesus dioxide
 

Digby Rigby

Arachnoknight
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All shell and fat

Hissers suck as feeders, all shell and fat. They are also slower breeding than commonly bred feeder species and they climb glass. You would be better served with Blaptica dubia roaches, Blaberus fusca or even Eublaberus distanti among others. They breed much faster and do not climb glass. Also have a much better meat to shell ratio. Even though most of the species mentioned are smaller they have more usable matter to digest and more than compensate for the size differences by faster reproduction and growth.

Digby Rigby balboa28279@mypacks.net

My Feeders Are Cooler Than Your Pets;P
 

cacoseraph

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Hissers suck as feeders, all shell and fat. They are also slower breeding than commonly bred feeder species and they climb glass. You would be better served with Blaptica dubia roaches, Blaberus fusca or even Eublaberus distanti among others. They breed much faster and do not climb glass. Also have a much better meat to shell ratio. Even though most of the species mentioned are smaller they have more usable matter to digest and more than compensate for the size differences by faster reproduction and growth.

Digby Rigby balboa28279@mypacks.net

My Feeders Are Cooler Than Your Pets;P
so.. did you ever find the cites to back that up? last time you failed to, iirc ;)

my point is not that i know more than anyone else... it is that i know what we *don't know*

ppl make stupid assumptions all the time and don't realize it. it happens in well established hobbies and it is clearly happening here

we actually KNOW NOTHING ABOUT DIETARY REQS OF TARAS AND OTHER INVERT PETS... anybody who claims different WITHOUT PROVIDING CITES AND SOURCES is blowing smoke up the collective hobbys arse, straight out. and is certainly not helping advance the hobby at all. in fact, they are hurting it ;)


so, now that we have established that the "shell and fat" stuff is smoke we can talk about the overall fecundity of them.... yes, certainly they breed slower than most/all other feeder species. but... if someone has only a few pets to feed roaches to this seems like a benefit to me... when my lobster colony is going full bore i can't feed out enough to slow their exponential growth.... and i have HUNDREDS of pet predacious inverts! i have to believe i have more than all but 1-3% of keepers.


but heck, ppl like astrology and reading tea leaves and what not... so if you are well satisfied with what could only be called pseudoscience at best... then by all means :D
 

Digby Rigby

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Not smoke and mirrors

They are all shell and fat. I never failed to get the cites I didnt even bother. I have no reason to make this up and by your own admission you have not been able to dispute what I have said. If you want go out there and find out for yourself. I give you information based on fact and experience if you dont like it then you go out and find cites that prove me wrong. ;P :p

Digby Rigby balboa28279@mypacks.net
 

cacoseraph

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They are all shell and fat. I never failed to get the cites I didnt even bother. I have no reason to make this up and by your own admission you have not been able to dispute what I have said. If you want go out there and find out for yourself. I give you information based on fact and experience if you dont like it then you go out and find cites that prove me wrong. ;P :p

Digby Rigby balboa28279@mypacks.net
so, you just magically know? what you use, crystal ball? your demonstrably staggering intellect?

all i am saying is quit selling something like fact when it isn't. you only look stupid to people who know better than you and mislead newbies.

everytime this has come up the really intelligent people on the boards (like code monkey) with some kind of association with actual science have supported me and swatted your kind down.

you can keep feeling big around all the ppl in the kiddy pool or you can go get a science book and come back ;)

edit:
in fact, last time you went around this subject with zuum you ended up making up some nonsense about disecting them at some uni lab or something?
 
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8+)

Arachnolord
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Quite the debate we have here!

However, there is one thing nobody has asked. eelnoob, what are you wanting to feed with them? Also, you asked for online dealers: LLLReptile has them with discounts for bulk. When I got them the egg crate had lots of babies as a bonus.
 

DavidRS

Arachnoknight
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Too high in fat for my liking. B. discoidales is a good feeder.
All of my large T's, parahybana, geniculata, versicolor, nhandus, etc, love the occasional Hissing Big Mac. Their main diet is dubias, though.
 

Drachenjager

Arachnoemperor
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Jan 23, 2006
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well i was getting too many hissers for my likes so i fed out all but 4 adults and all my Tarantulas killed them fast and ate them jsut fine. i fed some babies to my little P. cancerides and the smaller seemani and anax.

If anyone had orange heads and or dubias they have too many of I wold like a few to start a colony. and i got hissers too if anyone wants
 
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