dcfarms

I am not at home as of yet. But you can find D&C Farms at Amazon.com (currently on vacation mode), Ebay.com, and https://www.dchealthyfeeders.com/

Thank you for the great post. I am Daniel's wife and I do intend on keeping D&C Farms going for as long as I can. Daniel had been wanting to do this for a long time and really loved caring for his critters.

There are different growth stages of chicken feed. Go for the chick starter feed. It has a higher protein, fat, calcium, etc content for growing chicks. And its already in crushed granule form instead pellets or chicken scratch feed.

We also use a soybean based chicken feed for all of our roaches. By Dumor from the local tractor store. A 20 lb bag for $9; kinda lasts about 3 months. Non-medicated.

When hissers do escape, they tend to stick close to where they know the source of food is but when they travel away you can find them in some rather strange places (like the bathroom ceiling ). Nymphs are more likely to escape than adults. I have those glue traps laid around my bug room. They don't catch all of the escapees but it helps.

I use vinyl disposable gloves when handling my hissers. Also keep in stock disposable dust masks that I get at a local hardware store. These have helped hugely. I also break out in hives with my cave roaches and deaths head roaches.

Once that first batch of nymphs are successfully born, they erupt like crazy. I started with about 5 or 6 surviving nymphs that matured, birthed several litters, and now I have maybe almost 100 mixed sizes of nymphs. I currently have about 4 adult females and 1 male reproducing from the last group that matured. Every time I feed and water, it seems like there are new nymphs. I love this species....oh and they are great fliers. Had some escaped females; drove my cats insane till I snagged them.

mostly they are at room temp. Bedroom with no a/c so it can get up to 85 degrees in there in the summers. Winters all the bugs are by the heating vents. But I also have heating pads under the tanks (ones that you use for reptile tanks). @Matttoadman I have definitely developed allergies to my hissers (Madagascar, Halloweens, Wide horns, hybrids). I get hives and respiratory reactions. If I don't wash my hands afterwards and touch my eyes, they swell up and itch for days. I have to use gloves and mask now to handle them. But the Halloweens are still my faves....

I have had hissers for 2 years now, a big colony, and I am always in and out of the hive. It is dry with black buffalo beetles to help maintain cleanliness...they are always in stages of inactivity. They have a constant supply of chicken feed and water crystals but I get the most activity when I toss in over-ripe bananas, salad mix, cole slaw mix, and apples. Males are the most active when it is warmer. They tend to fight over space and females. Nymphs tend to cluster around the feed dish and the females wander in and out of the egg crates.

I found that my small amount of 12 peanut beetles almost died out but then bounced back with a small vengeance. They devour almost any food item in the tank. They breed rapidly much more so than buffalo beetles and may take over the tank if left unchecked. If you are looking to get rid of some peanut beetles they are highly sought after in alternative medicine as "gorgojos chinos".

My husband and I sell on ebay and amazon. Both dubia and red runners. Both are fed a soy protein based chicken feed that is supplemented with fresh fruit and veggies weekly. Water is supplied through water crystals which we have not had any problems with.

I found this little guy wandering around in my bathroom and it is not one of mine. Wondering if anyone can give me an ID on the species? I live in North Dakota so this is throwing my through a loop here. I know we some infesting species but the I just moved into a new place and the exterminators were just here last month. The little guy is kind of oval in shape dark brown with a dark tan stripe from behind the head on the thorax stopping at the beginning of the abdomen. Lighter tan trim on the sides of the thorax and light tan little legs. He/ she was quick but not quick enough to evade capture. And can climb the plastic sides of the container it is in right now.

No extra care is needed for the nymphs. my colony always has a protein source cause as the colony grows they get more ravenous. I am constantly trying new veggies and fruit combos with them. So far they devour almost anything.

We use Dumor chicken feed. It is a soybean protein based chick feed. There is the hatchling/grower feed (which we get) at 20% protein, chicken scratch which has a lower protein, a chicken pellet with lower protein as well, and a layer feed for hens. We sell a lot of feeders and meat based proteins break down to uric acid which builds up in reptiles as well as humans and can cause painful joint issues like gout.

We have Blaberus fusca which are nice. Just got them breeding a few months ago and now have a couple hundred small nymphs all over. We just listed them on Ebay

It shouldn't stress her too much. I handled and feed and check my colony every few days and there is almost always a gravid female. Sometimes an ooth breaks but the remainder incubates just fine. I have changed out egg carton hides many times with females having ooths hanging out with no bad effects. If it makes you feel better, you can relocate her first so she has a chance to hide then relocate the rest of the colony.

green beans are fine to feed them but potato on the other hand I would be cautious of. Potatoes turn green when exposed to light which is toxic (Solanine) also found in the stems of tomato plants. I would use carrots instead of potatoes.

I may have tried kidney beans as well as black beans, I have a cabinet full of canned beans and I always wash them thoroughly.

The ooth definitely did not look normal. Cooked or canned beans (make sure to wash well all the salt off) are another way that you can introduce a source of protein to your hissers. So far mine have done well with pinto, baked beans, black eye beans, and white beans...as well as garbanzo beans (chick peas). You can also add spinach (49% protein) or red cabbage (22& protein). Corn and squash are also sources of plant protein. These are all accepted by my colony.

we use Dumor Starter/Grower chick feed non-medicated. Its soybean based, no meat. All of our species do well on it plus supplement with fresh veggies and fruit.

We get gnats and fruit flies, cause no harm, but really, really annoying. And we did have a battle with some phorid flies. Again no harm to the roaches, the larva feed off of dead roaches but ugh maggots, gross.

We live in an agricultural area so there is a tractor and feed store available to us and have found a soy bean protein based chicken feed (hatchling/ grower) [24% protein] that all of our roaches have responded very well to; much better than dog or cat food. the feed and water crystals are available at all times. Our common hissers started out slow but before we knew we had hundreds.

We live in North Dakota so in our experience dealing with crickets they don't do well with shipping even with a heating pad at about 35-40 degrees. About half die. Local pet stores go into a shortage of cricket feeders. Turkistans aren't picky about the moisture that develops in the enclosed container when shipping with a heating pad. We have no experience with lobster roaches so no advice on shipping them. We learned through trial and error last year with shipping in winter what kind of containers suit which species we are selling and whether or not they will tolerate the condensation that may build up in a sealed container and a heat pad.

I have never been able to keep track of instars on my hissers (I have 3 species). Just that when they start resembling mini adults I start calling them sub-adults.

My first few broods of nymphs with my E. javanicas hissers (Halloweens) were very small. Just a few per female. The females were on the younger side but once I started introducing a better source of protein and added a variety of fresh fruits and veggies weekly the broods got larger. They are in dry conditions at room temp (78-85). My hissers love apple, banana, salad, carrot, onion, cucumber, alfalfa, bell pepper, squash, pumpkin & pumpkin bread, cranberry jelly, corn, and have tried beans (kidney, black eye, pinto, baked). They only thing they didn't go for was celery.