Red Runner Roach Escaping Capability

[Harmonicon]

Hey everyone! I'm looking to switch my feeders to red runners soon as I'm getting pretty tired of crickets. They seem like great feeders but I'm really worried about them escaping since my home stays pretty warm throughout the year. I'm planning to house them in an airtight container with a vented mesh lid... yet I am worried as I've heard stories of some getting loose without explanation. So after some reading, most people tended to use tape and vaseline to create a barrier, but will that really stop the nymphs from climbing? Are there any other ways/strategies to prevent escapes? I would not want to risk even letting one run loose, or I may have to get rid of them (my family is deathly afraid of roaches ).

Thanks, any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[goonius]

We keep our red runners in an unconditioned outer building in summer for warmth, so my bigger issue is keeping wild roaches from invading the red runner bin. To avoid this, the red runner bin is placed on a brick in another, larger bin which contains a few inches of water, creating a moat around it. Anything that tries to get in or out drowns, basically. You could do this as extra assurance. The red runners never escape in my experience. In fact, I keep a light on in their room at all times which seems to keep the red runners hiding in the egg cartons rather than roaming around. Do be aware the adult males can and will fly for short distances, but this only happens when I remove them for feedings. So put the adult males in a container with a lid to transport them for feedings.

The only time I've seen them successfully climb up a plastic wall is when it is scuffed and scratched, so be sure to get a brand new container with slick sides for housing. If it does get scuffed up, it will need to be replaced.

I find them to be the best and easiest feeders. But they do stink and will require occasional cage maintenance which is unpleasant.

 

[DomGom TheFather]

High smooth sides with a secure lid. Cut and patch the lid with screen. Keep harborage well away from the top and use a barrier. I run a cotton ball with a few drops of olive oil around the top few inches but people use packing tape and Vaseline, too.
I have bins worth and never had any issues with escapes. They're pretty easy to keep down.

 

[Dry Desert]

Hey everyone! I'm looking to switch my feeders to red runners soon as I'm getting pretty tired of crickets. They seem like great feeders but I'm really worried about them escaping since my home stays pretty warm throughout the year. I'm planning to house them in an airtight container with a vented mesh lid... yet I am worried as I've heard stories of some getting loose without explanation. So after some reading, most people tended to use tape and vaseline to create a barrier, but will that really stop the nymphs from climbing? Are there any other ways/strategies to prevent escapes? I would not want to risk even letting one run loose, or I may have to get rid of them (my family is deathly afraid of roaches ).

Thanks, any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

What I always use for anything I think maybe an escape artist is Aluminium Foil Tape. It comes in 50mm wide rolls and sticks to anything. A layer, or two, around the top inside will prevent any climbing, and it doesn't need replacing. It can be a real pig to remove from the backing paper until you have the nack.

 

[Wolfram1]

just use a deep tub with a lid, more escape protection is not needed for Blatta lateralis

i used to keep them in my appartment without issues

its often easier for them to escape from the enclosures/terras u put them in if there are any gaps than from your colony setup

if there are any setups that permit escape just feed males exclusively in those they cant reproduce alone

 

[Harmonicon]

Alright, thanks everyone! I'll try using olive oil or aluminum foil tape, both sound like they'll do really well. And the idea of feeding males only sounds good too!

 

[Kaqpewqt]

Im keeping Red Runners in a pretty large bin (around 80 liters). There are about 15 cm between the lid and the edge of the egg crates, and i never saw a single roach even try to climb up the tub. I keep this 15cm segment clean, as there might be some “chalk“ from the water as i spray them occasionally when my room humidity drops below 40%. For ventilation i cut a big part out of the lid and put in fibreglass-mesh. There are some resources out there stating that they could chew through it, so i tested it with a few roaches in a small box where they could reach the mesh, but they never chewed through it (had them in there for about 3 weeks). But just don’t let them reach the mesh in the first place lol

I also bought some sticky traps for roaches and placed them near my walls / anywhere where they could hide. This doesn’t prevent outbreak and will not kill (all) roaches if they escape, but i can check the traps every few days, and if i see a single roach there, i can be sure that there are a lot more hiding somewhere.

The only situations where i am afraid something could happen, is when u take out a whole egg crate to „shake“ them off or when you place a bowl with roaches inside of an enclosure for reptiles, as u can’t check if all of them where eaten or some got away. Another thing is feeding a spider in an enclosure where the ventilation holes are too big and the roach could escape, as they are quite squishy and can escape if they are not eaten by the spider. The last one is throwing away leftover veggies which u didn’t check well enough for nymphs.

2 Simple solutions:

1: to take out roaches, i cut and egg crate into a smaller shape, which i just stack onto one crate in the middle of the bin, close to the heating source. When its feeding time, i place a smaller bin or bucket inside the roach bin, which is big enough for the small piece of egg crate and shake the crate in there. I make sure theres nothing on the ground around my colony and i have enough light to be able to see a roach if it gets thrown out of the bucket. It never happened so far, but if, just step on it. They are insanely fast and it’s just too risky to try to catch them.

2: take a small vial and scoop the roaches out of the feeding bucket one by one and directly feed them to your spiders. Most of the time i can watch the takedown and i dont have to worry about the roach escaping out of the enclosure. Otherwise, i try to get it out again or i made sure the ventilation wholes are small enough in the first place.

hope this helps!