Reptile & Amphibian Forums

HOW in the heck do you find the babies in an inch of aspen shavings???? Ive been trying to start a colony of orange head roaches and finally today SUCCESS!! BABIES!!!!!

I saw them as i put in the shavings (I had no substrate before)

HOW can i sift thru the aspen and find the babies easily?

What do you do?

I make sure the aspen layering in the container is not too deep so I can somewhat find the babies. Otherwise it takes patience of slowly removing some bedding and freezing what you take out so that you can ensure that you are not dumping live roaches into the trash.
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~ Juli ~
www.Polliwog-Design.com

if you weren't going to feed out the nymphs, I would just leave them be in the substrate. As long as you feed them and give them the proper moisture, they should grow fast. My orange heads are overpopulating my container, as are my discoids and 'dubias. I couldn't be happier with the progress my colonies are having; I am still holding off on feeding out until I have an obsene amount, for I've got a bunch of hungry monitor lizards, who eat a S___tload of insects everyday. I am trying on working on a formula to give me an understanding of how many adults I would need to properly supply a constant supply of roaches to feed out. I hope I can remember some of the calculus I've taken in the past.... anyways, congrats with the babies!..

bm

geocities.com/odatriad/myfeeders.html

Congrats on the babies

If you are not feeding off any of the babies I would just leave them in the aspen until they are big enough to pick out! I use shavings and thats what I do. Take care, Lindsay

I keep mine on a 1/4-1/2" of spaghum moss which makes them easy to find. When I clean I dump all the ones from the egg crates and the take a cup full of roach filled substrate into a small plastic tub,then dump in the substrate and pick out the babies with a spoon. It takes me less than two hours for a large colony with hundreds of adults and nymphs. (75% are on the egg crates, 25% in the substrate.) For daily feedings I just pick the nymphs from the egg crates.
James