Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi

From what i've heard about hissing cockroaches is that their exeskeleton is really tough. Would this be a problem for feeding them to a monitor? Anybody here feed hissers to their monitors?

Thanks for any replies

Keith S

Roaches are great food for monitors. They are easy to breed (especially lobster roaches)and don't cost a lot of money to keep. They breed very quickly, so 100 turns into 1000 really quickly. Saves a lot of money. I feed hissing roaches to all of my monitors and have never had a problem. We also feed lobster roaches. I find the lobsters nice for the smaller or juvenile monitors and hissers for the big guns. Now, we do have a couple monitors that will not eat them. My smallest savannah won't touch 'em and neither will my Nile Monitor (also neither will my red tegu, but the rest of my monitors (and other lizards also) devour them instantly when fed. In fact, I just place the smaller ones in my roach bin (huge rubbermaid container with bug stop around the top) and let them go to town. Some of our friends have tried the roaches on their monitors and some would not eat them, but others would. I would suggest just aquiring a few to see if your monitor(s)will eat them before you go buying a large quantity. However, I don't suggest feeding only roaches. We feed a variety, but the roaches still save you some money.

Hey kieth,

Roaches make an excellent choice for feeders, however, I feel that hissers don't make that great of a selection. There are several other species which I keep which are far better candidates than hissers. As far as breeding, lobster roaches are by far the most prolific and easiest species to acheive a colony large enough for you to be able to feed out as many as you need, without depleting your breeder stock. I don't know how many monitors you keep, but I know that I have many monitors, so I have a messload of lobsters, which give me a steady supply of feeders for them. Now, I only occasionally buy in a box of crickets, just to give some variety now and then.

Some other species that work great, but are a little bit slower at multiplying are Blaberus discoidalis(discoid roaches), Blaptica dubia (surinam spotted roach), Blaberus cranifer (death heads), and Eublaberus protisticus (orange head). These get nearly twice the size as lobsters, but may take 3 to 4 months to reach adult size, whereas lobsters mature around a month or so..

So, if I were you, I would probably recommend lobsters, however one thing to keep in mind is that lobsters can climb glass, so you must take care in setting them up, whereas the other species I listed cannot climb glass, as their tarci are arranged differently and does not allow them to climb slick vertical surfaces.. check out my dinky little site, I have a more detailed acoount of how I keep my feeder roaches. Good luck, take care,

bob
www.geocities.com/odatriad

My Albigs like them , one used to eat 15 at a time. Vit and calcium dust them before feeding, and feed with other whole animals (mice etc). The shell is no problem whatsoever for a HEALTHY monitor that is set up properly, as they can almost digest anything. Lobsters are geat reproducers, and hissers are a bit slow at that but they both climb, lobsters can climb very good and you need something like bug-stop to keep them in.

n/p

.

"Lobsters are geat reproducers, and hissers are a bit slow at that, but they both climb".

I read it again, but is there something i was supposed to pick up? I'm not trying to be offensive but i am not catching your drift about the comparison of lobsters and hissers. The reason why i'm asking about hissers and not any other type of roach is because i know a guy that has a buch of hissers and he wanted to know if i wanted some.

Keith

It states in my post "like lobsters hissers do climb but not as good". It wasnt for you, it was to get them to reread my response from their last comment..

.