Hissing Roaches

[Solar Dart]

I've got a 6 or 7 inch long S. subspinipes. Is it cool to feed him hissing roaches rather than large crickets? If so, do you think he'd need more than 1 a week?

 

[MrDeranged]

I have heard of people feeding large subspinipes hissers with no problems. 1 or 2 a week should be fine in my opinion. The only problem you might run into is that the hissers can climb glass and plastic while the pede can't.

Scott

 

[Code Monkey]

But if you wait until you've got a hungry pede, that probably won't be too much of an issue when you drop it in there...

Roach hits ground, pede hits roach

 

[skinheaddave]

Originally posted by Code Monkey
But if you wait until you've got a hungry pede, that probably won't be too much of an issue when you drop it in there...

Roach hits ground, pede hits roach

Interesting that you should say that. I find my pede (S.morsitans) is quite hesitant to eat. I have left crickets in there for more than week and he won't take them. I have to get something in tweezers and basicaly shove it under his head. Then he will take stuff.

Not that I mind hand-feeding my pede, since its really facinating -- but is this normal?

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Solar Dart]

Mrderanged -

Thanks : ) I've been feeding him large crickets since I got him a month or two ago, and he's been fine. But to me it just seems like an animal that big would profit more from a larger prey item.

Dave -

When I had some baby centipedes a couple years back, I had the same problem. They wouldent eat at all and eventually died. But thinking back on it I've often wondering if the problem was too much substrate in the cage.
I probably had about 6 inches of peat moss in the enclosures, and the centipedes would burrow right down to the bottom. I think it's possible that they stayed down there for days at a time, and as a result never saw the crickets.

 

[skinheaddave]

That certainly matches my setup. Lots of substrate. Since building the wet rack, however, the humidity has been more uniformily favourable to him and he has been spending much more time on the surface. He also took his first cricket on his own. He must have known that I'd posted here and decided to trick me.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Mister Internet]

Originally posted by mrderanged
I have heard of people feeding large subspinipes hissers with no problems. 1 or 2 a week should be fine in my opinion. The only problem you might run into is that the hissers can climb glass and plastic while the pede can't.

Scott

Agreed, although I would reserve hissers only for the large pedes (Malaysian, Vietnamese, Puerto Ricans, etc etc) at least 7 or 8 inches long. Thing is that hissers have a very hard exoskeleton compared with other "food" roaches such as Death's Head and Lobsters that using them really isn't better unless you have a very large pede.

If you have a ton of hissers as a pre-existing colony or something, then go ahead, but if you're going to go out and buy them just to feed your pede, then I'd go with a more standard feeder roach just to make it easier on the pede. They're cheaper (usually) and your pede will have an easier time of it.

Then again, what do I know? :?

 

[Solar Dart]

Mister -

No, that makes alot of sense. Actually, the reason I asked about the hissers to begin with was because I had some doubts about them being good centipede food animals due to the hard exoskeleton.
I had completely forgotten about deaths head roachs. I think I'll go with those instead.

 

[skinheaddave]

Anyone have any personal experience with breeding deaths heads? I've heard they are prolific breeders and I have been considering setting up a colony for my monitor lizard and inverts.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Solar Dart]

Yesterday I drove 40 minutes to the only petstore I know of in the area that sold deathshead roaches...and of course they had none left. The employee I talked to said they had tried breeding them with no success.
On a side note, I bought a pinkie instead, and the centipede ate that little moe foe without a problem, lol.

 

[skinheaddave]

Like anything, I imagine it is just a case of playing around until you get it right. Or maybe they are hard to breed, and I'm thinking of another species.

Cheers,
Dave