Reptile & Amphibian Forums

After almost two years of putting up with crickets, I've decided to try something new. Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

I set up a 10gal aquarium w/ a locking lid and a 3" band of vaseline around the top, to keep them from climbing all the way up.

I purchased 10 from herpsnacks.com and they arrived last night. I was told it could be months before they bred, but I got extremely 'lucky' and I woke up to 20 or so little babies running around the tank.

This happened a bit sooner than I expected, and I'm just looking for any advice anyone may have as far as caring for them and when the ideal time is to feed them to my veiled cham (about 2 years old now). I know the adults are no good, but I'd like to know the ideal size they should be when I do feed them.

Thanks for any info.

Hissers are easy breeders. The only problem is waiting for the nymphs to reach adulthood. Watch out though as babies can get past vasoline.
I wouldn't recommend feeding hissers to your veild. They have hard shells and even the young have tough skin except when freshly molted. I would feed them to monitors but chameleons and hissers aren't a good match..
Try Orange heads (non climbers), Discoids (non climbers), Orange spotted (non clinbers), and Lobsters (climbers) but you can use bug stop.

After almost two years of putting up with crickets, I've decided to try something new. Madagascar hissing cockroaches.

I set up a 10gal aquarium w/ a locking lid and a 3" band of vaseline around the top, to keep them from climbing all the way up.

I purchased 10 from herpsnacks.com and they arrived last night. I was told it could be months before they bred, but I got extremely 'lucky' and I woke up to 20 or so little babies running around the tank.

This happened a bit sooner than I expected, and I'm just looking for any advice anyone may have as far as caring for them and when the ideal time is to feed them to my veiled cham (about 2 years old now). I know the adults are no good, but I'd like to know the ideal size they should be when I do feed them.

Thanks for any info.

I use hissers quite a bit for my veileds and panthers and they seem to like them. They're very low maintenance and don't take much attention. I keep mine on about an inch of pine shavings with some random small pieces of egg carton and 10 TP rolls. I have a small dish in there with some cricket gutload and give them some veggies every few days. That's it. I feed them off when they're about an inch to an inch and a half long. Much bigger than that and I let them grow up. Small ones work pretty good for smaller chameleons, but they run around a little faster and are more able to escape being so small. I had a weird die off of most of my males so I had to let a few grow up to take their place. I don't keep a whole lot of them, and I didn't want a colony breeding faster than I was using them. They do seem to breed rather slowly though, compared to other roaches. They're a pain in the butt to feed off also, since (personally, I think) you gotta make sure they get eaten to keep them from hiding in the cage or getting out. I'm going to order some other species soon, probably orange heads and try them out. I need something that breeds a bit faster. Give silkworms a shot also if you haven't I'm beginning to like them.
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Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com