BlattaAnglicana

Just to add, I spotted her this evening trying to "scrape" the part-aborted ootheca off by rubbing her butt on the cork bark. She almost managed it but in the end I intervened and gently helped to pull off the dried up part of the ootheca. I've left the aborted eggs in the enclosure as I know they sometimes eat them for the protein. However it's clear there is still some of it still inside her as it was only sticking out about 3/4 inch and I'm sure a full ootheca is longer than that. Does anyone know if this will be OK for her? i.e. will it cause her any issues, health wise? I've not seen her trying to push anything out since then but does anyone know if the remaining eggs might still go to term or will she just abort the rest of the ootheca at some point?

Unfortunately more bad news to report - the small nymph that was very weak died today, although I think it was inevitable as it had become slower and more reluctant to eat and was moving more and more slowly over the past few days, even though I was hand feeding it, so at least I was prepared for it, although it's still sad to lose another one from such a small litter; and I have had another ootheca abortion However I'm sure it's the same female that aborted before AND the same one who had the prolapse, so I am now thinking that the prolapse probably has caused her to be incapable of making and holding a healthy ootheca to term. It seems that the second ootheca was also misshapen like the previous one, and what I think may be happening is that she was trying to turn it (as I understand it the females "air" and "turn" the ootheca about half way through gestation) but because it is mis-shapen and perhaps because her internal musculature has been damaged by the prolapse, she can't retract it, so she then has to abort it At the moment the ootheca is still half way out of her (and has been since at least 6am this morning, UK time, i.e. 13 hours, so I am assuming it won't get retracted after that sort of time) but I am hoping that she will abort it fully within the next day or so like last time and otherwise be unharmed. It's a bit sad as I had hoped she might make a full recovery and eventually have a full litter, but I am guessing she is now incapable of doing so and this will happen every time she becomes gravid. I guess as long as she aborts the ooth each time she will still live a normal life span though? On the plus side the remaining one nymph from the litter of four from my female that died has already moulted again (last moult was Christmas day so it's only just over two weeks!) and I think is now a fourth instar, so it seems to be growing up very quickly! I am now just hoping that one of my three new females finally gives birth without any issue some time soon - I've had them for about 7 weeks so I am assuming they will do!

What are those small black creatures in with them (visible in the photos a few posts up)? They look like some sort of small beetle?

Thanks Hisserdude, I have to admit I am not too hopeful about the small one with the clipped antennae, as it has always been behind the other two in size and development, but at least the largest one which has already had two moults seems so far to be healthy, so I am more hopeful that one will make it to adulthood. I just hope one of my females gives birth soon and doesn't have any of the complications the first two had - a couple of them are certainly looking very fat, and I've seen several of the females eating the higher protein food I've been giving them, so I am hopeful of getting some more, hopefully healthy, babies soon!

Thanks Hisserdude, no it's only the antennae that were damaged, its feet seem perfectly fine to me, and it was climbing up the smooth surface of the plastic cup with no problem. The food is in several milk bottle tops and jam jar lids so although they have a "lip" to get over to get onto the food it is very low and certainly low enough for this little one to climb over, so hopefully it will be OK. I have however left a few pieces of food directly on the substrate for the time being - obviously I'll have to check them more often for mould but at least initially this one should be able to find food without having to climb a smooth surface anyway. I have now released the nymph back into the main enclosure with a small piece of orange next to it in case it is hungry, although I suspect it will wander off before it eats again! I've also re-used the plastic cup by cutting a "door" in it and turning it upside down to make a sort of "high humidity" small shelter with a piece of soaked cotton wool and some food in it, which I hope will stay at a higher humidity level than the rest of the enclosure, so if this little one (or the other small one) need higher humidity hopefully they will find it and go in there if the rest of the enclosure is too dry.

OK the small nymph is now drinking from some water condensation on the side of its cup, so I am now wondering whether the issue was dehydration or lack of humidity. It was definitely lower than usual this morning at around 50%, as I was out last night and did not spray the cage in the evening as I usually do, so I am wondering whether perhaps the small nymphs can't cope with lower humidity. However I've read conflicting advice on the net about this - some care sheets say hissers need high humidity and others say keep them on the dry side and actually you can get problems with them if the humidity is too high, so I really don't know what to believe! FWIW I've been keeping the substrate completely dry but misting down a corner of the cage most days, and after that the humidity usually goes up to about 75%-80% for several hours (including getting condensation on the glass walls) then slowly drops to about 55%-60% by the time I spray again. Perhaps leaving it a few hours longer was the issue and the small nymphs aren't drinking enough or having enough humidity in the air and so getting dehydrated? They do have a water source as well (a jam jar lid with a soaked cotton wool pad in it) but I have never seen them drink from it, so I had assumed they were getting enough water from the spraying and fruit they are eating, but maybe I'm wrong? Edited to add a photo of the nymph with damaged antennae - does anyone know if this will cause it significant issues in finding food? It seems fairly lively now but is sat at the top of the plastic cup and seems to want to get out - I would let it out if I was happy it won't have issues finding food with its damaged antennae but would rather leave it in the cup where there is food nearby if it may have difficulty in finding food in a bigger enclosure.

Well, it looks like I have lost another nymph from my remaining three (I have currently got it on a piece of moist cotton with some food in a little plastic cup on a heat source, but I have not seen any sign of movement since I found it unresponsive this morning, so I think it is dead or nearly so), and another looks pretty weak, and has had some of its antennae clipped (I'm not sure how that happened), so sadly it looks like I may be down to just one out of the four that my dead female originally gave birth to before long. I'm not sure what could have gone wrong because the middle nymph that now is dying seemed pretty healthy until just a couple of days ago and I had certainly seen it eating since Christmas. The other one was always smaller and weaker and I did think that one might not last long. A couple of days ago I had to hand feed it food and drink which does seem to have perked it up but the antennae have been clipped since then and I am now concerned it might find it difficult to find food at all. Should I isolate it and give it food separately from the adults? Does anyone have any other suggestions? The adults all look OK and are lively, responsive and seem to be eating well (although no signs of any of the females giving birth yet, even though I have had them over six weeks) and thankfully the one remaining nymph (which was the one that moulted on Christmas day) still looks lively and healthy, but these two smaller ones have gone down hill very quickly, in a matter of a couple of days. I haven't changed anything in relation to my husbandry, the only thing I can think of is that I put some (washed, organic) blueberry and raspberry in the cage for the first time this week and am wondering whether there might have been some pesticide residue still on it that might have caused the sickness with the two smaller nymphs. I am aware that some pesticide use is still allowed in organic farming, although I had hoped there would be less chance of finding residues on organic foods than non-organic, and I don't believe farmers can use systemic insecticides in organic farming so I had thought that just washing everything organic would be good enough. Maybe that's not the case though? Edited to add: I have now put the small nymph with the clipped antennae in a little plastic cup on its own, with some food and a moistened cotton pad, and I've put the entire cup, with the lid covering it but not firmly clipped on so air can get in, back into the main enclosure nearest the heat pad. I'm going to see if this nymph eats like this, i.e. away from the interference of adults and with food close by, and if so I may keep it like that and if if seems to be getting stronger, and hasn't escaped of its own accord, I'll release it back into the main enclosure with the adults. The other nymph is definitely dead though At least I tried I guess but with so few nymphs surviving from my dead female it's still sad to lose another one.

My adults look more like the females you have (including the male who is much darker than your males). They are all a dark mahogany colour, including the nymphs, but the nymphs have a "border" of white around their entire bodies and very light undersides as well as some white striping across the thorax and abdomen, at least of the very young ones. I have looked online at photos of both portentosa and oblongonota nymphs and they don't really look like either, especially with the white striping on the body. I did see the one that shed yesterday a bit later on last night and it had darkened up without any stripes on its abdomen (still a bit of striping on its thorax and still a thin white border round the body) so I am guessing that the stripes will go on the others too as they get older, so I don't think that trait will last to adulthood. I'll see if I can get pictures of the little ones but they are fast little things that shoot away under something as soon as I open the cage, and tend to spend most of the day hiding anyway, so I haven't yet managed it! My feeling, looking at photos on here and online (though I am no expert, I've only been keeping them since October!) is that mine are probably mostly oblonogonota, but they were sold to me as hybrids by the breeders who know way more than I do about roaches, so I'm sure they are not pure!

I promised myself I wouldn't post on here on Xmas day(!) but this makes it well worth it! One of the three remaining nymphs from the small litter my dead female gave birth to has just moulted, and I watched all of it happen - the first time I have seen a moult all the way through! I saw it come out onto the side of the cork bark (which is unusual as the little ones tend to hide a lot more than the adults) and it was making sort of wriggling motions, and then suddenly a split opened along its back and a pure white little creature struggled and strained its way out of the old skin over the next few minutes! I am amazed at how much bigger the next instar is than the old skin it shed, and in fact it seemed almost to inflate itself like a balloon once it had come out of the old exoskeleton and just kept on growing. It was quite weird to watch! It is still pure white (and has now scuttled off back under the bark to hide) and it will be interesting to see what colour it darkens to over the next few hours and days as the previous stage had quite a bit of white on it (a sort of white "border" round the edge of the body and several white stripes on the top plates of the thorax and abdomen). They look most like oblongonota nymphs from the photos I've seen online but I am sure they are hybrids of some sort so it will be fascinating to see what colour this one ends up!

Just as a quick follow up, it seems my hissers love (organic, salt free!) canned haricot beans, which I slightly mush up before giving to them - I've seen at least two different females and the male munching on them with great gusto, and I have also noticed bite marks in the cat food (though I've not actually seen them eating it), so here's hoping this means there will be lots of healthy little ones soon!

Thanks dcfarms for the suggestions - I hadn't thought to give them spinach or cooked beans but I eat a lot of both of those myself, so in future I will save some for my roaches too I notice you didn't mention red kidney beans, I am guessing that's because they might still contain some of the poisonous stuff that has to be boiled out of them before we humans can eat them and roaches might be more sensitive to it?

Thanks IceRoach I will try that - they certainly seem to prefer the oats I put in the dry food bowl to any of the dog food so maybe they will find cat food more agreeable. Unfortunately living in a big city I am a bit limited to food for domestic animals for the protein side, I can't imagine there is anywhere in inner London I could get the sort of agricultural animal feeds that I have seen some people recommend! BTW, I assume you mean by "misted cat food", dry cat food which has been moistened? For what it's worth, the female did finally manage to expel the rest of the ootheca and is back to normal now. I saw her eating some of the aborted eggs too which I hope will help with her protein needs, and if I find a protein source they like in the future hopefully I will start to get better breeding results. And there is one piece of good news - one of the nymphs has had its first moult! I saw it last night not long after it had shed when it was still completely white, and hopefully the others (I think there are two others remaining from the original small brood) will soon follow.

Please can someone help? What should I do? The ootheca is still there after 24 hours so I assume it won't be retracted now, should I try to remove it or just leave it? She seems otherwise OK though.

Hello all, it seems I am really not having a good time with breeding my hissers I now have a female with an ootheca literally half out of her. This one is definitely not a prolapse as I can see the individual eggs in the ootheca, but she has been holding it like that, apparently half in and half out of her, for about 8 hours overnight. The eggs are much yellower than they were last night and I see no sign of the ootheca being retracted again. I am really concerned she may now have a prolapse like the other females but I simply cannot keep an eye on her as I have to be out all day and can't watch her. I just hope that doesn't happen but this is getting quite stressful for me. Has anyone else had such a bad start to keeping hissers? Is there anything I can do for her? Should I remove the ootheca or will it fall off naturally if she doesn't retract it? I really think I must be doing something wrong to get all these breeding problems but I just don't know what it is. The only thing I can think of is that they are not getting enough protein (as some have suggested in other threads), and I am not sure they are eating the dog food I'm giving them as it never seems to disappear from their food bowl, but it's not easy for me to get another source of protein. Should I try cat food instead?

Thanks dcfarms - I am currently feeding them a variety of organic veg (apple, banana, pear, courgette/zucchini, orange, carrot, bell pepper, romaine lettuce) and a mixture of ground-up dried dog food (with chicken), oat biscuits and breakfast oats for protein. They also have dry oak leaves (we have four big English Oak trees in the garden so no shortage of those especially at this time of year!) in the enclosure and a small amount of rotting wood from the substrate that was in the carton I got them in from the breeder, which I have seen some of them eat occasionally. Do you think I should give them more protein than this to get bigger broods? If so what do you suggest I add? As an aside the second female who had the prolapse is still alive and still seems healthy nearly two weeks after it happened - in fact I now find it hard to tell her from the other females and there is no sign of the prolapse or even any damage to her, I cannot see any difference between her back end and those of the other females, I.e. nothing sticking out and no obvious inability or problem to open and close the rear segments in comparison with the others. Had anyone ever heard of a roach prolapse being completely reabsorbed or healed? it just seems a little quick for it to have dried up and fallen off within two days of the prolapse happening so I am wondering if somehow she managed to pull it completely back inside her.

Hi all, another newbie question here! How do I tell (or even, can I tell) what instar a hisser nymph has got to, i.e. whether it has moulted to the next stage? The two (or possibly three - although I have only seen two at once, there are so many crevices in the cork bark for them to hide in that the third one could still be alive and hiding in one of them) remaining nymphs from the small brood of four from my female that died are now just over three weeks old and from what I have read, I would expect them to start moulting into the next stage soon. They are a bit bigger than when they were born, but I have no idea whether they have already moulted into the next stage or whether they are just growing bigger and haven't yet reached the limits of their old exoskeleton. Do the different instars look much different from each other or do they simply just get bigger over time until they look like mini-adults and the instars can't reliably be told apart? FWIW these are Gromphadorhina hybrids.

Just curious really - does anyone know how hissers "hear" other roaches hissing? They obviously don't have ears like mammals do, and I am pretty sure they don't even have ear-like structures like crickets do, but I would have thought they must be able to "hear" or at least detect the sounds that others of their own kind make in enough detail to interpret what they mean (defence, mating etc.), otherwise they surely would not have evolved the way they have?

OK this is weird - I hadn't checked on my female with the prolapse for a couple of days as I didn't want to stress her out whilst she was recovering, but tonight I decided to have a look at them all, and it seems that the prolapse has completely disappeared on the female that had it. I don't know whether it just dried up and fell off, or whether it has actually been "reabsorbed" back inside her somehow, but there is no obvious sign of any damage to her any more. I will obviously keep an eye on her, as I can't believe she has completely healed, but I am sooo pleased to see that she hasn't gone the way of the other one and, so far at least, seems to be doing OK

Thanks Betta132, yes that does help - I guess I am a bit guilty of over-anthropomorphising them (they are my first pet roaches - and pet insects of any kind!) and it's always good to bring some objective scientific perspective back into the mix in these circumstances Interesting point about them possibly being handled roughly by the vendor or damaged in transit - I guess that's possible as I bought them at a big insect show where they were in plastic containers with no packing material, just a bit of substrate in a plastic carton, and I have no idea how far the vendor had come or how he had brought them to the show, so yes it's possible they could have been knocked about and injured in transit. I drove very sedately and as smoothly as I could home with them myself though (as I also did with the new females), so I hope it wasn't anything to do with me! FWIW the second female with the prolapse is hiding under one of the cork barks tonight so I can't tell whether it is shrinking and whether she is still alert, but she was out on the log in the "hot" area of the tank with the others this morning and is definitely behaving much more normally than the other female whose injuries, in hindsight, were obviously fatal, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that this one survives for longer.

Thanks Hisserdude, I have certainly made sure I've followed the advice I've read here and on other internet sites about their care and the temperatures are always between 21 and 26 celsius (I think about 70F and around 78-80F) so whilst they aren't super high they certainly aren't lower than you've suggested. There was only one live nymph in this case (the other female at least had four, although one died after a few days) and I found the remains of the egg case - it looked as though most of them simply hadn't developed at all though there were one or two which looked like they may have started to hatch but died trying to get out of the egg. It's because they were both from the same vendor that I wondered whether genetics and maybe a very small gene pool had anything to do with it, although as I understand it inbreeding doesn't cause anything like the same problems in insects as it does in mammals? Alternatively I wonder whether there is some instinct in the females to keep on "pushing" if there aren't many nymphs born, which causes them to push their own insides out if they don't give birth to many of them? Still doesn't explain the poor birth rate though. The better news is that this female is still alive and seems to be acting more normally than the other one did after the prolapse - she was hiding under one of the pieces of cork bark this evening and seemed quite calm whereas the other one that died never left the top of the bark and seemed to be constantly in distress, trying to "scrape off" the prolapse, and rapidly weakened within a day or so of it happening. I haven't seen this one eat or drink yet but the prolapse seems to have shrunk a bit this evening compared with the photo I took this morning (though it hasn't dried out), so I am a bit more hopeful that she will at least survive longer and be able to live a relatively normal life (other than presumably not being able to breed again) if she does. I am not counting any chickens though after the last one My three new females are from a different vendor / colony with a very good reputation and they all seemed a lot more active than my original three hissers (including the male) from the start, so I am also wondering whether maybe the original two females were simply in poor health or weak specimens anyway. I guess time will only tell if the new ones also have birth problems too (I think at least one is gravid as she is very fat!). If not then hopefully it's just a genetic / health issue with the original females, but if it happens to any of the new ones too then it must be something I'm doing wrong. I just hope I find out what it is before it happens again.

Photo of the second female's prolapse - it's nowhere near as bad as the first one thankfully but still doesn't look good to me

Another update, not such good news The second of my original two females gave birth today and there was only one live nymph, but it seems she too has suffered a prolapse as there is still some yellow stuff hanging out of her rear which is definitely not egg case or "roach milk". Thankfully I caught her trying to push it out and the disturbance seems to have stopped her making it worse (unlike the other female who I only caught when almost all her insides were pushed out) so I am more hopeful she will survive than the other one, but I am seriously worried now that this is more than a coincidence and it must be being caused by the way I am keeping them. I have recently moved them to a new enclosure which is bigger than the last one and apart from the fact that the humidity is a little higher due to the damp substrate I have put in, everything else is the same. Can anyone think of anything I am doing wrong that could cause these semi-aborted egg cases and prolapses? Could it perhaps be genetic given they both came from the same colony? Could it have been the move to a new enclosure that stressed her perhaps? I just hope the three new females I have (form a different colony) don't suffer with this problem too.

Just a quick update on this thread in case anyone is interested - I still think the remaining three nymphs from my dead female are alive, though it's hard to count them when they hide completely inside the cork bark! I have definitely seen two (or at least one plus a second pair of antennae in the same crevice!) in one of the crevices and although I haven't seen the third one in the open for a while I also haven't seen any evidence that it has died either, so I am hoping for the best I also got three new adult females today - I had asked for two but the seller gave me an extra one for free which was a very nice surprise! They are currently settling in to their new enclosure and as they are all adults I am assuming they are also all gravid so no doubt I will be swarmed with nymphs before long and then won't know what to do with them

Thanks Axolotl, yeah it feels pretty rough at the moment with my female dying as well Interesting you say that they move out of the colony to die as that's what the female did too - she stayed on top of the cork bark for the last two days of her life rather than hiding with the others underneath it most of the time as she always had done before. So I guess if I see one wandering about like that again I should probably expect the worst. I did read somewhere that hisser nymph mortality is quite high so I shouldn't expect all four she gave birth to to survive, but equally I would feel pretty sad if they all died. On a brighter note I am going to get at least one more adult female (and probably two) to replace the one I lost next week, so I am hoping I have better luck with them. I would have loved to take some of your surplus ones if you'd been in the U.K., and there don't seem to be as many people over here who keep hissers as there are in the US, but I have found an entomological supplier not too far from me with a good reputation so I am hoping these ones will do better for me. I also think once I have a bigger colony I'll be less concerned by the deaths but I guess with such a small number of insects to start with every individual loss makes a bigger impact.

Well I've lost one of the nymphs tonight and I really don't know why It was crawling around the enclosure earlier on, seemingly fine, albeit climbing the glass walls whereas the other three that I have seen spend most of their time hiding. I saw it climbing and falling off the walls a few times but didn't twig that anything was wrong, especially when I saw it end up crawling onto a piece of fresh carrot which I'd just put in the enclosure and thought it was eating. However I went back to have another look about 30 minutes later and found it on its back with legs curled up - I have tried to revive it with heat from my hand and offered it some water but to no avail, there was no reaction at all so it's definitely dead. In hindsight when it was crawling on the glass I can see now that it was struggling but I put that down to it having got its feet covered in the vaseline barrier I use to stop them getting onto the top of the enclosure. I don't know whether this one was just a weak one which wouldn't have lasted long anyway, or whether it exhausted itself trying to climb the walls (although having found the food I would have thought it could have replenished its energy), or whether it's because I'm doing something wrong for them. The only difference from what I've done before is there was some Romaine lettuce in the food bowl (along with carrot and apple both of which I have given them - at least the adults - before with no reaction). The lettuce (like all the food I give them) is organically grown and I had washed it very well before putting it in the enclosure. I am aware that organic food is less dangerous for insects than non-organic but still can have pesticides on it so I wonder whether it could still have had enough residual pesticides on it to have killed a tiny roach? I have now removed the lettuce just in case, and just have to hope that the remaining three nymphs will fare better whether or not the lettuce had anything to do with it.