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 #1462946


Lell
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 Roaches not breeding

My Craniifer Hybrids have not been breeding. They had babies the first week I got them, meaning before they came to me they were obviously breeding. They are kept in a 60 quart tub, heat emitter which provides 100 degree daily heat, dry dog and rodent food crushed together, which i never see them eat, and lettuce. There’s about 7-8 egg crates stacked vertically, and I mist the enclosure every other day, but dries up quickly. What am I doing wrong?? There’s about 6 adults and like 9 babies. What my main concern is the food, what should I really be feeding them??
09/30/07  01:44pm

 #1463642


JackAsp
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   Message To: Lell   In reference to Message Id: 1462946


 Roaches not breeding

I can not keep death heads healthy unless I have damp sphagnum in there. I know everyone says "no substrate" but so far, I’ve found that I simply can not keep them humid enough without it. With it, humidity is easy enough that I’m changing the egg cartons every few days becaue otherwise they’ll turn to mold.
I use pretty much everything for the dry staple. Cat food, turtle food, cricket food, as long as I run it through a cheesegrater it dissapears from the food dish pretty quickly. Vegies usually don’t get eaten, so I make sure they’re on the center of the food dish ( I use plastic peanut can lids and things like that) so the leftovers get removed the next day instead of shuffled around and buried or dragged. Two things that I HAVE found they go crazy for are melons, banana peels, and hardboiled eggs. Try those if you want to get a strong feeding response. And the more you dice up somethig they like, the better they can all swarm over and polish it off.
Also, darkness is a big plus. Since you’tre using a ceramic heat emitter, I assume you’re using a tank. I use a tall Rubbermaid bin with an undertank heater. it has a few slits stabbed in the lid for air, but it’s pretty much constant nighttime in there, and since I moved them from a clear tub into this grey one there has been WAY more breeding activity.
Unfortuntely, I’ve lost way too many of them to both early husbandry errors and using adults as food like there was no tomorrow, so about half an hour ago I just broke down and sent away for a reload. The first however-many-hundreds I had only cost me about a day’s pay. This time it cost me about a week’s! Still cheaper in the long run than buying the same number of crickets, though.



09/30/07  11:35pm

 #1463689


Lell
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1463642


 Roaches not breeding

Lol yeah you just can’t help but to feed off the adults it’s crazy, it happens all of the time.Yours were pure Deaths Heads or the Brown Wings aka Death Head Hybrids? About the eggs, I fed my Lobsters scrambled eggs a long time ago, and most of them started dying. The tub is black in color, and it gets dry really fast in there with all that heat. It easily reaches over 100 in it. Are you reccemending putting some sort of substrate in there to keep the humidity at a decent level? As for cat or dog food, is it dry or wet? Thanks.
10/01/07  12:12am

 #1464089


JackAsp
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   Message To: Lell   In reference to Message Id: 1463689


 Roaches not breeding

Some looked like pure cranifers, some looked like fuscas. So, probably all hybrids. or maybe the previous owner started ouit with cranifers and then started replenishing the colony with fuscas or hybrids. I don’t know.
Over a hundred is too hot. I’m not sure how warm they can be and stay healthy, but low 90s is suggested for breeding. The heat might have them semi-aestivating.
I hate to suggest going to substrate, because I haven’t yet worked out the mechanics for how to keep it clean in the long run without losing nymphs. Very carefully and by using more tubs than I’d need otherwise, I guess. But yeah. Wet sphagnum takes a long time to turn into dry sphagnum. During that time, even the air stays humid, and they can bury themselves when shedding. It’s pretty antibacterial stuff, which is why you can still find dead ancient Celts in spagnum bogs and see what they ate for dinner before they drowned. Just keep the food off it, start out with way more than you need, and any time you see a little patch of mold, get rid of a whole big handful in that area. it’;s not really that fungus-prone anyway. I’ve had more growth on cardboard tubes and even egg cartons than on moss, although egg cartons are just too handy to stop using.
Strange about the scrambled eggs. I used hardboiled egg yolk. Not as regular thing, though, just sort of to see if they liked it, and then again for the hell of it now and then when I’m eating hardboiled eggs. Most of their diet consists of grated-up dry foods. I suspect one reason mine show so little interest in most vegetables is that they have so much moisture in there anyway; they probably just lick it right off whatever surface they’re on. The cool plastic lid holds condensation really well, so there’s always a rain forest effect in there.



10/01/07  01:41pm

 #1470107


JackAsp
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1464089


 Roaches not breeding

Hey, have you tried rice yet? I cooked too much and gave my hybrids what was left, which I figured was more than enough for all of them and it was GONE in like half a day. I recently found a ten pound bag of it in my apartment parking lot. It was there when I went outside for a cigar, and it was still there 45 minutes later, so apparently it wasn’t urgently missed, and if I just left it it would have been run over soon, so, sorry, whichever neighbor paid for it. But I don’t actually like the stuff, I prefer brown. So at the moment I’m cooking up about half of it, along with a couple heads of collard greens, and I’ll see how that works out. I’ll keep including cat food too though, since I don’t know precisely which proteins DHRs do and don’t need. The leftover rice I gave them had tuna mixed in, and they certainly weren’t bothered by fish, that’s for sure.
10/07/07  03:42am

 #1472349


Lell
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1470107


 Roaches not breeding

what type of roaches are these? I’m sad to say all of my 1000 lobsters, and my 20 death head hybrids died today due to ignorance.
10/09/07  12:14am

 #1472404


789
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   Message To: Lell   In reference to Message Id: 1472349


 Roaches not breeding

Geez. Who did you get your lobsters from? If you want more lobsters I know a good guy to get them from. I had a problem with discoids and hissers dying out. My lateralis colony mostly escaped. oops.
10/09/07  01:41am


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