Need advice, superworm disappeared

[Arachnoclown]

@Metalman2004 I breed all feeders in my T room. I don't use or follow any special heat or humidity caresheets. I just put them on the top shelves near the ceiling. My T room isn't that hot either but everyone seams to be breeding. Ive read sheets that say stuff like high 80s to 90 degrees for Madagascar hissing cockroaches to breed...thats a bunch of crap. They are breeding in the low 70s. I hate caresheets...

 

[Tortoise Tom]

Thanks. That is a generous offer, but I only have one T with no plans to add to that any time soon. I wouldn't be able use enough of them to keep the colony under control plus I am just not that interested in keeping roaches anyway. I looked at ordering, but they are expensive to order online because of the shipping. Too expensive. The roaches themselves are cheap enough but then it is another 15 to 30 dollars to get them ship. Not spending that on a roach. I'll figure something out eventually. I may eventually just give in and decide to keep a colony, but for now I think I will go with Arachnoclown's advice and start clipping off heads of the worms.

Here is another idea that may work around your issues: Capture a few local roaches and start your own colony. I did this with Blatta lateralis and also with Blatta orientalis. No shipping. No cost. If you are feeding out your CB baby roaches, no risk of pesticides. If any escape, well, they were already there to begin with. If you get too many, freeze or incinerate the excess. Or give them to friends. Or leave them in the mail box of the guy who cut you off in traffic and then flipped you off. Not saying I would ever do such a thing…

 

[Tortoise Tom]

How warm is too warm? I’m guessing my garage in the summer is too warm but I just don’t have any other place for a colony. At this point I sure have enough Ts to justify it though!

I keep my roach bins on high shelves in the reptile room. The room temp drops as low as the high 70s on a cold winter night and gets as high as the mid 90s on a hot summer day. We get outside temps of 110+ here in summer sometimes. At my peak, I had 18 species of roaches in about 40 bins in there. I kept them this way for several years and managing the excess just became too much of a full time job for me. Now I'm down to 4 species, and soon to be three.

I have no personal experience to offer, but I've seen lots of info on people using various heating strategies to maintain warm temps for roaches. B. lats will breed faster at higher temps, but they will still breed at room temps too. Maybe try keeping them on a high shelf in a room that stays relatively warm? Not hard to add a heat mat to the outside of the bin either.

 

[Tortoise Tom]

Ive read sheets that say stuff like high 80s to 90 degrees for Madagascar hissing cockroaches to breed...thats a bunch of crap. They are breeding in the low 70s. I hate caresheets...

There was a college student a few years back that did his thesis on what temps hissers could survive. He froze them for extended periods and they survived and went on to mature and breed later with no problems.

Likewise, I have escapees that live outside around the reptile room and they do fine even in winter with nights in the 30s. Same with B. lats. My lateralis colony was started with wild caught locals many years ago.

Roaches will breed faster at warmer temps, but at least some species will also breed and function at lower temps. Hissers, any of the temperate species, and any of the "pest" species will all do fine at normal room temps. Some of the more tropical species will stop reproducing in the 70s.

 

[Sage Exotics]

@Metalman2004 you can keep them anywhere..stuff them in a closet if you have to, but if you have a lot of spiders, roach colonies are a MUST, imo. They're easy to breed, easy to keep, and you know exactly what your spiders are eating, because they were raised and fed by you. Lats should have completely replaced crickets in this hobby by now, I don't understand why they haven't, other than fear of infestation maybe?

Here in Canadia roaches are illegal. All of them. I suppose I could try finding some wild ones, but I haven’t seen any and I’m worried about parasites and pathogens. So unfortunately crickets are the best feeder (in pet shops) here. Although if you want some, ask around, find a local T breeder, they will usually slip you some under the table.

 

[Matthew]

Well after that superworm episode and the fact that I can't seem to get turks anywhere local I decided to try feeding crickets and so far it has worked out. My spider is much quicker to snatch up the crickets than he was the worms. There were times it would be hesitant or just outright refuse a worm even though I knew it had to be hungry. With the crickets each time I drop one in they get snapped up almost before they even hit the web. I'd still prefer the turks but I guess crickets will work just fine for me if they keep evoking such a strong feeding response.

 

[Whitelightning777]

With crickets, you can put the feeder into the fridge for an hour (not the freezer) and then toss it into the middle of the web. As it slowly revives the tarantula will nail it.