Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have some questions about hissers... i would be breeding them for my leopard gecko, and my tarantula would get a few. for my questions: how hard are the to get to breed? how much to they smell (compared to those horrible little creatures some people call MICE)? where can i get a breeding colony of a few insects? my parents have a concern that while im getting some out to feed, i could lose one and it could be a problem in the house... no one wants cockroaches in the house.... how much of a problem would hissers be? thanks.. dave

1. They are great breeders, but they need conditions. To get the colony to breed like mad, you need pretty good humidity and temps from the mid 80's to mid 90's.
2. "They" dont smell anywhere near the rankness of male mice. And in fact, are in my opinion, infinitly better smelling than crickets.
3. You can order them online. Mikes monitors(link in the monitor forum, then at the site, go to links, then goto death row.) has them, 60 for 40 bucks, all adults. he hooked me up, and I now have between 500 - 1000, in about 6 months. And that was with less than perfect conditions.
4. Unless it is quite warm and humid where you live, they won't be able to propagate outside the colony. They wont get out if you put a descent layer of vaseline at the top of their tub. I would suggest that you watch your animals eat them, to make sure they die. This way, they wont be getting out of your terrariums. As far as what to keep them in, a 22 - 30 gal tote tub is perfect. use pine shavings as substrate to keep away from grain mites. Mist every other night, or when humidity gets low, and feed regularly. Other than that, youll be fine.

One question though, Hissers get quite large as adults, so what will you do with the excess. a terantula will not be able to keep them in check, and unless you have alot of geckos, they wont be able to keep the kids in check. And, if your only going to get a few adults, they only live for two years, and so, you will have to let some babies grow, and hope you get males and females. Just a thought. I mean, if you really think you can control them by controling their environment drastically, i dont think you will have a problem.

Hope i helped.

Truth

>>i have some questions about hissers... i would be breeding them for my leopard gecko, and my tarantula would get a few. for my questions: how hard are the to get to breed? how much to they smell (compared to those horrible little creatures some people call MICE)? where can i get a breeding colony of a few insects? my parents have a concern that while im getting some out to feed, i could lose one and it could be a problem in the house... no one wants cockroaches in the house.... how much of a problem would hissers be? thanks.. dave

I am going with everything Truth said. And also suggest getting lobster roaches for you instead. They are better size wise and reproduce much faster too. Mine had babies within a day of getting them. They are softer and easier. The only reason I have hissers is for my savannah monitor. BIG. Hissers will take months to reproduce well for you and then you are gonna want to catch them little. Lobsters would be better to me.
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Sonya

For a leopard gecko, I'd forget about lobsters or hissers and go with orange head or orange spot roaches, because they can't climb vertical surfaces like the other two.
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Israel