Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've had some Turkistan roaches for a few months now, and my immature roaches have almost all turned into adults, and they are breeding like mad. I have scores of ootheca(at least 100 now!), some of which are three or four months old, but none are hatching.

I keep them as close to 90 degrees as I can get them (although with how cold it's been lately, they've been dropping down to the 70s for a few days), and feed them a mix of dry dog & cat foods, fish flakes, and Fluker's orange cricket cubes. They get fresh fruit & vegetables every once in a while, too, in the form of whatever scrap I have around (most commonly banana peels and sweet peppers, sometimes oranges & apples).

Is there any reason my eggs aren't hatching yet? Will raising temps or humidity make the eggs hatch faster? I was told I'd have a surplus babies in 3 months or so and be able to start feeding off roaches around 4 months, and it's been about 4 and still not a single nymph.

thanks,
Ronnie Nocera

Hi,

THe problem you are having is not in producing the eggs but in getting them to hatch, is that correct.

Is so, then you need to collect all the eggs once a week is good. Put the eggs in a seperate container with damp paper towel on the container floor, then put the container in a worm spot or on your water heater so as to bring the temp to 80-85 degrees. You will also need to cut a small hole in the lid of the container to get air circulation. In about to weeks 30 nymphs will hatch out per agg sack.

Do you have dry water crystyls? If not I would strongly recommend getting some. They are like $1.50 per ounce which makes 1 gallon of wet water crystals.

search for the water crystals on The Kingsnake.com classifieds you'll find them there