Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have been researching roaches all day, I think I want to start a colony. If you own a roach colony can you post your pics?

Here is my best attempt at a colony

Does the cork board work better than egg crate?

I am unable to have a steady supply of egg crate, The ones I get are trashpicked and the crickets need then more. I guess the idea of the cork is it allows the roachs to be less stressed and there poo falls to the bottom, I belive the cork should last a few years, aside form that it's also cosmetic since the thing is in my bedroom, trying to think of a name for the building too?
There are holes cut inbetween the layers so they can move from wall to wall easer.
Got the idea from some achanid forum

I found a site where you can buy the egg carton tray at http://www.eggcartons.com/cat3_1.htm . Do you have instruction on how to make the cork board housing?

Thanks for the link
The tiles are 8 4x4 inch tiles and 4 12x12 heald with 1/4 x 5 inch lag bolts. I used scarp clear hose for the spacers. I did use some scrap cork for spacers on the outer endge held in with masking tape. The smaller stack of 8 is bolted to the high rise outer wall.

It is over kill but I don't havea life at the moment lol. The extra thermomerters are beacuse there is a dish of 2 day old silkworms elevated away from the roaches and shareing the heat.

Damn high society roaches!

Thats a pretty elaborate set up for roaches. Its not a bad set up, just alitte over the top. The cork hide is a good idea, but it seems it would be hard to clean and would harbor alot of unwated things such as mold, bactria, feces, etc..

All our colonies are kept in sterilite tubs with egg carton. you can drill holes for ventilation and if you have a climbing species you can use patrolium jelly to make a barriar keep them from escaping. For foods, pretty much anything goes. We usually use fish food and carrots. Simple, cheap, and easy to clean. If they are in a warm room they will breed quickly on their own, but if they need extra heat you can always throw them on a heat pad. In the case of useing an aquarium, you can use a regular heatlight or UTH.

Assumeing you are feeding a dragon, I would advise you to invest in a larer species like orange spots, orange heads, discoids; because they are non climbing, slow and easy to establish. their larger size makes it 100x easier to fill an adult dragon than crickets, and if you have a smaller bearded than you can feed off whatever size young roach you need. A down side is they are a little bit more expencive than the smaller lobster roaches or the turkistans, but it will pay off in the long run.

As far as where to get egg crate, just go to your local petstore and ask for some. It comes with the boxes of crickets and is just thrown away by the truck load. one mans trash....

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- Mike Fourquet

Cloaca Herpetoculture
www.CloacaHerps.com

Thanks
I am hopeing there poos fall to the bottom and don't stick to the cork or atlest can be cleaned with a brush, otherwise there is no substrate. I never thought about the pet store having the egg flats, i will look that up!
thanks

I also have a dish of 2 day old silk worms in there too, thats why i have so many temp gauges