Why breed marble fish?
Marbled, marzipan, and Madagascar cockroaches are raised to feed domestic reptiles and other captive invertebrates such as tarantulas. Compared to other insects that reptiles feed on, cockroaches have a number of advantages.
Marblefish are easy to store because they are omnivores and happily feed on any wide range of foods. They reproduce easily without special egg trays etc., making them easy to raise at home.
They have a much higher meat-to-shell ratio (meaning they are more nutritious and easier to digest) than crickets or worms.
Cockroaches are quiet insects; they do not drive apartment dwellers crazy with their constant chirping.
Marbled cockroaches do not jump everywhere, which also makes them easier to keep. They are long-lived and very hardy, with a lifespan of a year or more, unlike crickets, which are very fragile and short-lived.
Cockroaches don't smell as bad as crickets and their cages don't need to be cleaned as often. Cockroaches do not bite and will not attack first.
Swift feeding technique
A healthy and strong little one actively asks for food, pouncing on the hand with food. It is more convenient to feed swift chicks using tweezers.
Swift chick being fed with tweezers
It is much more difficult to feed weakened chicks; even very hungry swifts do not open their mouths
An important condition is that weak swifts are fed with soft gruel from crickets or small feed cockroaches. Feeding is allowed both from a syringe and from a finger
To do this, the haircut must first be fixed well with a shawarma-type napkin.
Swift in a napkin prepared for feeding
Next, you need to carefully open the beak from the side, prying it with your fingernail, and put food in the beak.
A swift is fed by lifting its beak from the side
Usually, even very weakened chicks begin to intensively swallow the nutritious gruel from the cricket. After feeding, you can drop a couple of drops of warm water on the root of the tongue, since weakened swiftlets are severely dehydrated. Feed the weakened chick in small portions every 30-40 minutes.
What to do if you get an emaciated adult swift? Such a swift should be fed with semi-liquid soft food from insects, like a chick, with its beak opening from the side.
Breeding marbled cockroaches
Insectarium owners are extremely interested in breeding marbled cockroaches in order to always have live and fresh, dietary, high-protein food for their pet lizards.
Arrangement of the insectarium
- Marbled longhorned beetles are extremely prolific and breed and reproduce easily, even with minimal care.
- Use a glass aquarium or plastic container to enclose their habitat. The size depends on how many marbled cockroaches you intend to breed. The main thing to remember is that marbled cockroaches easily crawl out of plastic and glass, so you need to provide some kind of barrier.
- A fun way to do this is to smear a three-inch wide strip of Vaseline along the top of the container. Vaseline works very well and only needs to be reapplied if it accidentally washes off, rubs off, or dries out. You can also use olive oil.
- Like all their cousins, marbled cockroaches need shelter, so place cardboard boxes in the insectarium. If the insectarium is large enough, lay them vertically, and if not, then horizontally, as is convenient for you. Just make sure there is space between the boxes so that they are not tightly packed together.
- Some people use paper towels and toilet paper rolls, but this is less practical as it can be difficult to remove the cockroach from the pile of paper.
- Cockroaches hate light and love darkness! The darker you keep them, the faster they will reproduce.
- The size of the housing really depends on how much of the colony you want to maintain.
- Although adult cockroaches have wings, they cannot fly. Some cockroaches will "jump" and then "flutter" on the floor if you disturb them, but rest assured they cannot fly up and fly out of the tank.
- A lid on the insectarium is not advisable to ensure ventilation. But it is wise to put a lid on if you have pets or children who roam freely around the house.
Temperature and humidity in the insectarium
Without heat, your cockroaches will not reproduce or will reproduce very slowly. Keep cockroaches at temperatures above 32 degrees. This temperature is ideal for almost all types of feeding (tropical) cockroaches. At temperatures below 22 degrees they will stop reproducing.
You can heat marbled cockroaches in different ways. You can use a ceramic emitter hanging directly above the insectarium. The heat emitter maintains a temperature of about 38 degrees at the top of the bath and about 27 degrees at the bottom. This provides an ideal heat vector for marbled cockroaches.
You can also use other heaters, but it is safer to use a ceramic heater.
If you live in a warm climate, you can keep your cockroach colony in the garage during the summer and save on electricity!
Humidity is important for cockroaches. Without sufficient moisture, they will not be able to shed their old skins properly and will die when they moult. If you see a lot of dead cockroaches in your colony that died during the molt, it is safe to assume that the air in your colony is too dry.
Keep relative humidity between 40% and 60%. When humidity levels rise above 60%, you are at risk for mold. Surprisingly, marbled cockroaches cannot survive mold and you may lose your entire insect population.
Since your insectarium is full of cardboard, it will hold moisture well if you mist the cardboard with water about once a day.
Nutrition of ash cockroaches in captivity
Your ashy cockroaches need a high protein diet. High quality cat food or dog food works just fine for this purpose. You can go out and buy expensive cockroach food if you have some extra money. High protein dry food should always be available to cockroaches. You can just throw it in a corner, it's better to keep the food in a bowl.
Many people grind up dog or cat food before feeding it to the cockroach. This step is completely unnecessary. The cockroaches will be there anyway.
Additionally, you should offer your cockroaches fresh fruits and vegetables at least twice a week. Place them in a separate bowl. Any food that cockroaches do not eat overnight should be removed to prevent mold and fruit flies. Broccoli, carrots, apples, cabbage and oranges are all favorite foods of cockroaches.
Just remember that whatever you feed your cockroaches will eventually feed your pet anphibia, reptiles, and arachnids. So feed the cockroaches healthy foods!
Interesting. Fresh oranges act like Viagra on marbled cockroaches. Feed them plenty of oranges to increase reproduction! There are several ways cockroaches can get their water. By far the best way is to use "dry water crystals", add water and wait until they turn into a gel. Do not place wet sponges or wet rags in the insectarium. These items will only grow bacteria and they will become nasty very quickly. You can't just use water because your cockroaches will die. If you don't want to spend money on water crystals, just spray your colony twice a day and make sure there is always a piece of apple there for them to eat/drink from.
Dangerous “neighbors” and methods of dealing with them
The appearance of “uninvited guests” in the apartment causes many troubles. In addition to aesthetic discomfort, insects pose a threat of spreading dangerous viral infections that lead to serious diseases. The sex hormone secreted by the female is a strong and toxic allergen. The consequences of contact with American cockroaches are not comforting - asthma attacks, urticaria, erosion, atopic dermatitis and other troubles. Particles of decaying chitinous cover, shed by insects during the molting process, irritate the respiratory tract of house residents.
American cockroaches are capable of biting humans in the absence of sufficient food and water. Most often this happens at night. Painful damage to the skin leads to infection with dangerous diseases. Pets can also be attacked. Therefore, at the first signs of the presence of parasites in the apartment, it is necessary to take immediate measures to exterminate them. Methods of controlling insects There are various methods of getting rid of American insects
The simplest is freezing the apartment, but it is only available in winter and requires special care, as the heating system may be damaged. In addition, you can use effective chemicals, which include:
- crayons (Mashenka, Domovoy and others);
- highly effective, long-lasting gels: Raptor, Dohlox, Combat, Global and others;
- aerosols Raptor, Raid, Combat, Clean House;
- special traps;
- powders and solutions.
Do not discount effective, safe folk methods. If independent attempts to remove American cockroaches are unsuccessful, then you need to contact professionals who will carry out the treatment.
Not everyone considers palm insects to be dangerous pests. Exotic lovers very often breed this type of cockroaches, observing their life activities. Owners of lizards and amphibians feed baleen to their pets. Thanks to the high reproduction rate, one colony of Periplaneta Americana is capable of feeding a terrarium with lizards, providing them with high-quality protein food.
How do they reproduce?
Marbled cockroaches mature in 3 to 4 months (depending on temperature). Females can give birth to 30 to 40 babies almost every month. They grow quickly. As long as there is enough high protein food, plus a source of moisture, everyone lives peacefully together.
Female marbled cockroaches can reproduce by facultative parthenogenesis, meaning some are able to switch from sexual reproduction to asexual reproduction when isolated from males. But such parthenogenesis produces 10 times fewer offspring due to a decrease in both the number of offspring in a clutch and the number of clutches produced.
Parthenogenetic offspring are less viable than sexually produced offspring. The development of such cockroaches in adulthood occurs more slowly. Fewer parthenogens survive to adulthood, and the lifespan of parthenogens decreases as adults. These data show that there are certain limitations in the transition from the meiotic mode of reproduction, which requires fertilization, to the parthenogenetic mode, in which zygotes develop in the absence of fertilization.
Appearance, lifestyle
What do marble cockroaches look like:
- the size of an adult female does not exceed 3 cm, males grow up to 2.5 cm;
- the color of the imago is ashen or brown with a pattern characteristic of marble, the elytra are covered with small inclusions; larvae are brown;
- flattened oval body with a triangular head;
- have 6 legs covered with hairs;
- has wings, but is not a flying species;
- the structure of the cockroach is the same as that of all representatives of the suborder Blattaria.
The life cycle is 8-12 months. Under natural conditions, they settle mainly in fallen leaves. They begin to become active at dusk. Plant food is used as food; in its absence, they can also consume animal remains.
Three pairs of paws ensure fast movement on horizontal and vertical surfaces. Ash cockroaches are shy: in case of any danger they strive to hide in the nearest cracks and secluded places. Favorable conditions for naufets: water and warm climate; they die when frosts occur. Photos of marbled cockroaches are presented below.
Differences between a male and a female
Male and female marbled cockroaches differ in body size. The wings of males are shorter, the back of the body is pointed. Before mating, they actively flap their wings. In the male, the upper side of the abdomen is almost black, in the female it is lighter.
In addition, you can determine that this is a female by the ooteca that she wears on herself.
