I just wanna hear how many roaches you have and how many spiders. When it comes to a roach colony numbers are either going up or down so give us an rough estimate of how many roaches you need and whether they are doing well.



I've got 30 spiders
500 Turkistans
400 Lobsters

My roach colonies are in ..... :sick: decline :sick:

If you only have 30 spiders and all those roaches you are defiantely doing something wrong somewhere for your colonies to decline.
I'm not sure on the way that roaches are kept in SA but there are a few rules that I follow that have definately seen my roach colonies reproduce way beyond what I need and I have 289 spiders .

Rules that I follow

1) Temperature NEVER allowed to be below 90F (32^o)

2) Roaches containers ALWAYS blacked out so that they spend more time breeding than hiding from the light

3) I ALWAYS use egg flats and NEVER go for the natural setup

4) NEVER NEVER NEVER EVER USE FEMALES FOR FOOD. I would rather NOT feed my spiders than use a female roach

5) ALWAYS feed a high protein diet. I use powered dry cat crunchies. Roaches have soft mouth parts and cannot chew on hard dried foods with any efficiency. If the food is powdered, they can eat it very easily.

6) I ALWAYS use fresh fruit which is mainly oranges and apples and changed every other day. My roaches dont get 'scraps' they only get fresh food that i would eat myself.(except the cat crunchies)

7) Always keep the dry and moist foods separate as the dry food will go moldy very quickly is allowed to get damp or wet.

WoW! PeterUK nice colony you have and I agree with what u say, cuz Meteor 900 roaches vs 30 Ts? Hmm seems like you need to get them to reproduce more (if your colony is in decline), maybe its the lighting as stated?

Cheers

That's a great post.

I am doing most of those things but I think you are way ahead with the food. Are they getting any carrots and potatoes from you?

So what are you doing exactly, how are you keeping your roaches?
Are you using your roaches as feeders?
How often are you feeding your spiders, and how many roaches are you feeding to your spiders?

This is the diet my roaches get.
Dog food, cat food, rice, apples, oranges, cabbage, red cabbage, grapes, baby marrow, pumpkin, hubbard squish, butter nut, water melon, carrots, potatoes, cucumber, leaves, some meat,beans, pears, pasta and Mielies(corn).

I keep 3 species on substrate with bark.
I see with all my species of roaches they tend to like different things, some will finish off the food with in an hour where others will take a day or wont eat every thing.
Dubia Cockroach (Blaptica dubia)
Lobster roaches (Nauphoeta cinerea) Rice, mielies(corn)is there main diet
Oxyhaloa duesta (Red Head Roach) , this species is the main species that I give leaves to.

As long as your roaches are kept above 24degrees, they will breed for you.







.

hi guys, i own 3 T's at the moment. a 14cm Bracypelma smithi and a 1.5cm smithi sling as well as a 2.5cm Avicularia avicularia sling.
Do you think it would be wise to start a little colony or stick to the little tubs in the pet shops? If a small colony is possible could you give a few pointers on how to construct it.

Thanks