Crazy Bug Lady

My latest names include Shy Boy and Fierce Guardian. Fierce guardian is a male V-Horned hisser living with his much smaller dwarf hisser boy colony. He seems to like to sit on top of the bark while his smaller friends go under the bark.

When one of my hisser boys climbs on my hand without having to be picked up. When they use there feelers to smell me. The big males behavior of guarding a log or piece of bark.

I'm still able to handle my small colony and individuals. I would like to sometime try some of those pill bugs for pets

That's too bad. It's nowhere near bad enough for me to not want to handle them. Perhaps some over the counter medication will help, along with washing my hands for longer after handling them. I don't even get it all the time, and I'm honestly glad it's likely not some mite or something bothering them. Thanks for the help!

I'm getting itchy, almost blister-like marks on my hands after handling members of my hisser colony. Can grain mites bite? Or could it be a reaction to the hissers themselves? I'm planning to give the enclosure a good cleaning, but I wanted to see if anyone else had experienced this issue. I feed fruit (oranges) and veggies (carrots) along with a mixture I bought for hissers. As it says in the title, I am a blind hisser keeper, so I need to handle them to see if they are alive, healthy and so on. Thanks for any help with this!

Thank you so much for being willing to take them on. However, the females have been relocated to an education center/zoo where they can have their nymphs and be cared for in a manner that won't require any to be killed. I believe the nymphs were to be a mix of wide-horn and common hisser, but since it wasn't one of my own males that bred them I can't really be sure. I did a lot of research and I found out that hissers can carry fertalized eggs inside for a long time, which explains them being pregnant without one of my males breeding them. Needless to say I've learned my lesson and will only be purchasing subadult females if any from now on.

I'm not sure about poisoning. A good rinse usually does the trick for removing poisons for me. I hope your boys pull through.

I feel pretty bad that these nymphs are likely hybrids. It was never my intention to breed, but I don't really want to euthanize the mothers, especially since I can't tell which of my females are pregnant or not. I have sixteen females all together, four of which are subadults and I was just keeping my females by themselves. If I don't start a colony, I would really like to rehome the twelve adult females (the four subadults are being kept separate). Since they are a mix of wide-horn and likely hybrids, I realize that I might have to let them be feeders. I don't really want this, but want to be responsible. Again, any input would be welcome and appreciated either on the topic of rehoming or setting up a colony. Please also see my add listing for the females if interested.

Yes, I have seen/felt this first hand. It is very interesting. I believe they only do it for a short time. From what I've read she's turning her egg case to shift them into position for giving birth (someone please correct me if I'm wrong). Sorry if you already know that. I hope you catch your hisser doing this!

After doing some additional research, and looking at every single roach in my tank, I've come to the following possible conclusions: 1. There was no male present, so the females probably came to me pregnant and have been holding their eggs until conditions were right. 2. I probably have more than one pregnant hissing roach. I'm a bit worried that I'm going to have too many of them and would still really like some pointers on what I should do. Thanks in advance for any help.

Hi all, I just discovered that one of my hissers is expecting. I usually keep my males and females separate, but I must have missexed one of my females and now I have nymphs on the way. My questions are: How many gallons do I need for the tank? Do I need something other than a reptile tank with a screen lid. What else do I need to know? I'm feeling very nervous as I wasn't quite ready to start a colony, but I think I can do this! Any advice is welcome. Thank you, Crazy Bug Lady.

I really only use jelly cups as a source of extra moisture. Otherwise, I provide fruits and veg along with fish food that they really seem to like. They don't seem to eat much, but I'll find hidden fish food from time-to-time.

I call my flat horned hisser the Tank Lord because he is very bossy and has the tank to himself. He is a very spoiled roach. Other names I've had were a pair of males called Creepy and Crawly xd

I second the above opinion. I have a small colony of about 22 and they really don't make a lot of noise. They make more noise when you pet them or pick them up, but it's still not that loud. I hope you enjoy your new pets!

You could split the colonies by gender like I do, though be aware that the larger males will fight and can actually injure each other so you may need to further separate out some males. Otherwise, I would follow @hisserdude's advice.

Hello again all, I just wanted to update my intro. I now reside in Ct and have a split gender colony (meaning I keep my males and females separate). I have four males and three males. I keep my males separate from one another because keeping them together resulted in fighting. My roaches are still spoiled brats.brats. Hope all of you are doing alright during this crazy time.

I had a colony of eight males and had three die rapidly over about a three day period. I am thinking they just got too cold as our heat went out and it dropped to around 50 degrees F. I have since moved them to a new glass container with a heating mat, so I hope that will help. Any advice on what might be making them die off would be appreciated. I'm feeding fish flakes, roach jelly, carrots(not eaten) and clementines. I also mist at least once a day or more. Again, any advice would be great.

Thank you both. I'll be sure to only use it as a water source, and use other foods as the primary diet.

Aww, how adorable is that? I would love to have a hisser eat from my hand. Hopefully you can get a video!

So I've been feeding my hissers roach jelly, along with fish flakes and some carrots and apples. My colony is very small,. I have two females in one cage and seven males in the other cage. I've noticed that they aren't eating the roach jelly very fast, but that it seems to do well as a source of water along with misting. Am I over feeding them with the roach jelly? How long is it ok to leave a roach jelly in the cage? Just wondering if anybody knows. I purchased the jelly from bugsincyberspace as I heard it was a good source of both food and water, but I'm wondering if it's too much for my tiny colony. Any information on roach jelly would be much appreciated.

So, what does your average "Princisia" look like? I'm asking for a verbal description, not a picture as I won't be able to see the picture. I just got a pair and my family insists my male is brown. Could a "Princisia" appear brown?

Update: There haven't been any nymphs. My apartment stays below 70F, so I am guessing this is the reason, being that several of my females have to be adults. I'm very happy none of my girls have given birth, I do not plan to breed them. Thanks for the temperature tip, Hisserdude.

Yes, it would be difficult to carry outside and I certainly do not want steemed hissers! The only problem with the automated light settings is that they are probably not useable to someone like me who doesn't have enough sight to see the controls. I could ask someone to help me set it up, perhaps. But yes, I am having fun. I wasn't aware that moss needed so much light!! The decorations I would use would be on the large side to provent any bugs from getting stuck and to make it relatively easy for me to catch them.

What is a t5 lighting system/ Or, how would you suggest setting up the light. I would imagine I would need to shut the lights off at night, to give the hissers some dark time. I could also just bring the cage outside during the day and let it have sunlight, then bring it back indoors for the night. Hopefully I can get this set up in the next week or so and can post pictures!

I'm hoping to create a hisser habitat in the form of a glass-enclosed faerie garden. Faerie gardens are mad up of tiny plants, little houses and other faerie sized furniture. I thought the bugs could hide in the little houses and amung the plants. My substrate is a composit of conut fiber, small wood chunks and other organic material. I think plants would grow fine on it. I also think many types of moss would grow fine. My question is, are there plants I shouldn't have in there because they are dangerous to either hissers or millipedes?