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Blatta orientalis


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Although my orders filled with lots of cool stuff have not arrived yet, I'm a bit anxious to put up some pics for the first time here. I didn't dig too hard but I could not find any good stuff on the very common roach species Blatta orientalis also known as the "Oriental Cockroach" (despite it's likely origin of Africa :blink: ). I found these beauts in my girlfriend's backyard (she wouldn't touch them but she assisted me in catching them...keeper!) I've had them for quite a few weeks now. So...here's the colony!!!

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What the heck I may as well throw in some info about them too...

First of all this is one of the considered "pest"species. Thought to have originated in Africa, they apparently have spread and are found throughout the entire world. My camera makes them appear a bit red but they look mostly black in real life. They are usually around an inch (~25mm) in length, adult males are smaller and have wings that cover about 75%+ of the body, and females are larger and wingless (just the little 'wing pads'). Neither can fly, though. They eat pretty much anything; including leaves, cat/dog food, fruits, and other typical roach fare. They seem to enjoy the really starchy foods the most, the colony I have will finish off organic sweet potatoe before they touch anything else. So far for me they have bred easily, with females producing ootheca like mad. The egg cases contain between 12-16 eggs (14 average) and take about 2 months to hatch. Females do not care for the young. Although I have not seen a nymph yet, there are at least 20 ootheca laying around in plain site in my colony of about 3 dozen subadults-adults (plus a few adults carrying ootheca). Females are said to produce between one and 18 egg cases within their lifespan as an adult, which as an adult is roughly between one and 6 months. These guys have a slight odor and are fast as lightening. I've noticed that with my colony older females cannot climb smooth surfaces but the males and smaller subadults/nymphs don't seem to have a problem doing so. According to others they like things a bit cooler than other roaches (I keep mine between 70 and 75F and they seem to do very well) and need a fair amount of moisture. My camera bleaches it out but the coco is actually very dark and moist. I haven't heard much about these guys as pets (which makes me wonder are they not allowed to be marketed being "pests"?) so hopefully this can be a bit useful to some. Most of this info is pieced from the web and also from personal experience; I hope it's completely accurate! Anyway, just thought I would share.

Cheers,

~Cody

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I don't see anything wrong with keeping pests as pets as long as they don't escape! I had an Oriental for a while, but eventually let it go to make room for other bugs. You seem to be doing well with 'em. And it is pretty cool that your girlfriend helped you catch them. :P

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I don't see anything wrong with keeping pests as pets as long as they don't escape! I had an Oriental for a while, but eventually let it go to make room for other bugs. You seem to be doing well with 'em. And it is pretty cool that your girlfriend helped you catch them. :P

I know people keep them...and here I decided to start a new thread for this:

http://www.roachforum.com/index.php?showtopic=2090

And it sure is cool she helped me!!! She is just starting to handle the B. fusca and other impressive large tropical roaches, so she's definitely graduated from not wanting to even look at them. If I can ever get her to handle all of them and dive on and catch them in the backyard then I'm sure that's when I will propose lol

And yeah the B. orientalis are doing great. The ootheca started appearing all around the same time and so I have a feeeling things are going to be a bit dead then suddenly the nymphs are going to be pooring out of my ears! :lol:

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It'll take some time for me to find somebody like that too. Fortunately I have a lot of time. What kind of setup do you have the orientalis in? It looks naturalistic from your pics.

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I found her right away and that's further proof Jesus loves me lol

Actually they are just in a large plastic tub for now (the largest clear plastic tub superiorenterprise.com offers, I believe it is roughly 9.75" in diameter and about 6.75" tall) If those egg cases start poppin' I will definitely upgrade to a larger enclosure. For now there's about half an inch of moist coco substrate, along with a couple cardboard paper towel rolls. When I first captured these guys I hadn't ID'd them yet and so I threw some moss, leaves and wood from where I found them just in case they were a wood roach of some sort. They obviously didn't eat the wood from what I can see but they definitely nibbled on the oak leaves. I guess that second pic looks very naturalistic but that stuff has since been removed to make more room. :)

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Yep. Is she a Christian too? I'm pretty sure that orientals can't climb, so a big ol' glass terrarium could be nice when the group gets bigger. It'd be sort of interesting to see how well they would adapt to "outdoor" life when they've been domestic roaches and might have had different food preferences and stuff (if of course you want the cage to look like that).

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Yeah she is (took a while though) The males climb I know that for sure. I woke up in the middle of the night and walked by them and with what light there was I watched mating behavior as they all were active and feeding/courting. I went ahead and snapped a few pics, they are not that great but it was really late and pitch black, and with a flash outside of a plastic tub. Anyway I will post those pics when I get a minute (I'm currently unpacking some new additions :lol: )

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I love this species. First species of Roach I ever kept. I caught a gravid female my room a few years ago, and now I have a colony of about 30 or 40. My fiance loves them, as well. Won't let me get rid of even one or two. lol It sure is awesome having a girlfriend that's into bugs, isn't it? :P My fiance has her own shelf at my house of T's and roaches.

Also, where in CA are you? I'm in Bakersfield. If you're in the southern half, I'd suggest joining S.C.A.B.I.E.S..

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Ok as promised, here's a few pics I quickly snapped the other night...

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Sorry for the quality. My orders came in and I got some wonderful pics. I will post these when I can find the time here soon hopefully.

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