My roach colony (hissers)

[Bayushi]

last month i aquired a colony of hissers and was going to use them as treats for my P. Imp. well as things go, they were saved from that fate by my oldest son. He has decided they are community pets, shared between myslem and him.

Anyways we've had a few deaths due to fighting and probably old age. the colony went from around 30 to 24 in about a 3 weeks time. not that i was really worried about the losses since most were male and only one was a female. i checked the buggers yesterday afternoon to make sure they had water and food. Both were fine, well except for the fact they had eaten all the celery leaves (they love that stuff).

Well it's now around 24 hrs since my last time checking them. for lunch we decied to give my youngest son some apple wedges. Being the person i am, i took the left overs from the wedging process and decided to dump them in with the hissers. i pop open the lid and toss in the food, and to my surpirse he colony has grown by about 15 or so( kinda hard to tell cus there was a stampede to the fresh nibbles.) So for me not really doing jack all other than feeding, watering and housing the buggers, i have to be doing something right.

Now I just have to wait til the oldest comes home from scholl and ask him to "water" the roahes, so he can surprise me by telling me we have baby hissers. all in all a good investment was made on these things seeing as it gives my son his own bugs to take care of and he is learning more responsibility when it comes to animal care.


Just thought i would share with you all...

 

[The_Monk]

Thats cool. The kids love a bit of responsibility and when they see something like that (all them babies) the look on their face is priceless!! They'll be proud for weeks, topic of conversation at every available moment!!

I wish mine would hurry up and breed (the cockroaches that is). Well done!

 

[xelda]

Great story!

 

[galeogirl]

I had the same issue with my Nauphoeta cineria, I got to like the little guys so much that I had a hard time using them as feeders. I've been thinking about setting up a roach colony again for my daughter because she loves helping me with the spiders and she'd probably like something that she could touch.

 

[Bayushi]

Still having issues getting an accurate count. little buggers are fast.

there is one in the group that i can always identify. instead of turning the brownish black like it's brood mates, it has turned this really cool grey colour with black stripes. Hopefully this one will keep it's colouration, and if it does.. i'll set up another small colony with it to try and see if i can breed this colour morp(if indeed that is what it is)