New colony joins the ranks

[Andee]

So after being asked probably by like 20 people if I had them and having to say no and apologize I finally jumped on board! I have ORANGE HEADS now. 50 massive nymphs running around their new home. However I have noticed a few things. I have heard places that they are softer bodied than dubia. When I think of softer bodied I think of GBR's. However I raise Surinam's and I know red runners are soft bodied too, and these guys are even close. However they have a massively larger meat to shell ratio and are a gorgeous mahogany-red color. Beautiful species. Absolutely sweet as I can randomly pick a nymph and they don't even worry about it ^^

Definitely love species that show so much promise when working with them. Excited for future prospects they may hold.

 

[jamest0o0]

These are the absolute best feeders imo. Ivory heads are looking promising too. My chams gladly take orange heads, I don't even feed crickets anymore(which is awesome for so many reasons). Orangeheads also gutload extremely well. I like them as a clean up crew in my enclosures too!

Good luck andee

 

[Andee]

Thanks James, I have been enjoying all my new babies very much, I am absolutely in love with halloween hissers, I had a female get out a few days ago cause I accidentally left my lid askew and hadn't closed it correctly. I found her and put her back but from the way she was reacting was worried I would lose her, she is now happy and healthy again after some misting and intensive care next to the heat pad and being put on an orange with a dab of local unpasteurized honey. All seems good, she's one of my pregnant ladies and she is still carrying from the looks of it so it seems she's a good strong girl.

 

[Longhorn1234]

Orange heads are just a beautiful looking roach, in my opinion. I love the lines going across in the nymphs and obviously the color is awesome. I hope they do well for you Andee!
Hoping the Halloween hissers do great as well, I'm very interested in those haha

 

[kinyonga]

Hey Andee...post a photo or two please! I've never seen one!

 

[jamest0o0]

@Andee glad to see you working with the Halloweens. I just got my new batch in the other day. I've kept the Halloween hissers for almost a year now and I find them to be a little more sensitive than the regular hissers. They seem finicky with food and occasionally one will slow down and die for no apparent reason. The normal hissers I have will eat pretty much anything and numbers have exploded in just a couple months.

 

[jamest0o0]

Did you ever get the Costa Rican banana roaches btw?

 

[Andee]

Hey Andee...post a photo or two please! I've never seen one!

Will post a picture in a few minutes Kinyonga just misted them so they all burrowed for cover. I keep them like I suggest all Eublaberus species to be kept which is with substrate. I don't have any adults sadly yet, but I find the nymphs to be gorgeous so I think you will enjoy them just as much <3 I will wait for them to surface and see which one will tolerate the handling for a good picture best.

 

[Andee]

@Andee glad to see you working with the Halloweens. I just got my new batch in the other day. I've kept the Halloween hissers for almost a year now and I find them to be a little more sensitive than the regular hissers. They seem finicky with food and occasionally one will slow down and die for no apparent reason. The normal hissers I have will eat pretty much anything and numbers have exploded in just a couple months.

I find that funny since I seem to have less issues getting these guys to eat than the surinams which are garabage disposals, just the surinams don't really enjoy much fruit at all.

Did you ever get the Costa Rican banana roaches btw?

Not yet, I have a couple contacts who are getting them and I have of course Kyle if need be but he's still been super insanely busy I think. He's on a trip right now I think collecting new species and blood for some of his colonies. I am currently dealing with no shed still so no extra room and I am keeping all my roaches close together because I am using one heat pad for two bins at a time until I can get either heat tape or some heat pads next week.

 

[jamest0o0]

Will post a picture in a few minutes Kinyonga just misted them so they all burrowed for cover. I keep them like I suggest all Eublaberus species to be kept which is with substrate.

Do you find it makes much of a difference with or without substrate? I keep my hissers, porcelains, and ivory on substrate, but my Dubia, discoids, and orange head don't have any. There's tons of crumbs, grains, frass, etc at the bottom that they hide in though.

 

[Andee]

Sorry kinyonga pic will have to wait until tomorrow I think cause phone won't charge quickly lol. Technology I swear

@jamest0o0 It has shown that eublaberus of any type do better with higher protein content and higher constant humidity. It causes less wing chewing, which is actually done by females and growing nymphs most often when there isn't enough protein for them. But wing chewing is a sign of both stress in the colony and that something that you are doing as far as keeping them is subpar in my opinion. I have always viewed it this way. So if your orange heads don't have any chewed wings for the majority of them, you are probably fine just keep an eye on it. Healthy and happy colonies act in harmony and do mutilate each other. I have one super super old male with chewed wings in my dubia colony. But he was actually hitting the age where he could no longer keep up his territories and so was getting bullied by EVERYONE he was starting to become crippled, I ended up feeding him off because roaches are by nature colony species, they aren't happy completely on their own, I only seperate them from the colony completely if they need rehab (I have had a female during a massive chewing outbreak way way back in the day that had huge scarring on her because her exoskeleton got chewed down to the top layer of tissue, she ended up surviving and just having a unique look, went back with the colony after I started making my own gutload, and she was easily the most socially aware dubia I had for ages when it came to recognizing me) or if they are a particular favorite of mine and it's time to retire them as breeders. But I usually keep them in a smaller kritter keeper that shares the heat of the big bin next to it and keep some nymphs with whoever the older roach is as long as the roach isn't suffering they live out their retirement being housed with nymphs. I am weirdly attached to my feeders though. I may sell them, feed them off, and am very aware that's why I raise them. But I love them with every ounce of my being <3

 

[Andee]

orange head nymphs fr you kinyonga!

 

[jamest0o0]

Speaking of protein... do you know a good/cheap protein source for large colonies? I keep my feeders that I'm gutloading with expensive stuff in a smaller container ready to be fed off, while I toss oranges in my main colonies among other scraps. I need a reliable protein source that won't break the bank though. Hemp seeds would probably be great, but they're so expensive

 

[Andee]

I use alfalfa as my base, amaranth and small amounts of ground mung beans as my heavy protein bases, but that's not all I make my gutload out of XD we know mine is a ridiculous ingredient list. Something like 25-40 ingredients, message me James where ever you want.

 

[kinyonga]

Thanks Andee! They are awesome looking! I'd have to keep them as pets because I couldn't feed them off!

 

[Andee]

Thanks Andee! They are awesome looking! I'd have to keep them as pets because I couldn't feed them off!

Lol I love my feeders but I am also the kind of person with the mind set as everything needs to eat. I raise my feeders with everything they could want and need hopefully and therefore I know they have had a good life and don't feel bad about feeding them off.

 

[kinyonga]

I'm not as strong as you...I used to make my husband feed off the insects that I couldn't. We can't have roaches in Canada now though so it doesn't matter any more.

 

[NickTide]

I started on orange heads because my panthers go through streaks where they will only eat one or two. I fear some day they will stop eating them all together. They seem to be a lot slower to get going though. It took about 6 months to get a thriving colony of dubias going from maybe 25 -50 assorted sized nymphs. Had orange heads for about a year and I still wouldn't call it a thriving colony... getting there though.

 

[jamest0o0]

Ehhh orangeheads??? I'm not grossed out about roaches these days, many are even pretty cool, but I definitely don't mind feeding off those big orange beasts lol. Now I really like my Halloween's and yellow porcelains.

 

[jamest0o0]

@NickTide that's strange, how are they being kept? My orangeheads in a few months easily passed my Dubia and were practically boiling out of my bin. I must have had thousands. To the point I was gunna just give tons of them away.