Hello! (mini-book)

[Severus]

Hi! As some of you all know, I love asking questions. The greatest joy in life is learning. I just thought I'd give you all a little biography. I hope you don't mind a mini-book. It is late and I'm delaying working on my room.

I don't have any roaches yet. I will have some soon, though. I can't wait(well I CAN, but that is besides the point). I DID play with hissers at the Zoo all the time, when I was younger and was taking classes. I think I was the only girl who wasn't "Ewww! Bugs!"

That is the type I hope to get soon, hissers. After browing the forum, though, I realize that there is SO MUCH MORE to this hobby, than I could have ever imagined. Some of the roaches that have been posted are just gorgeous. Mom would kill me though....hehehe. She's not to thrilled about my interest in hissers as it is.

I really love spiders. I couldn't tell you a thing about them, but the facinate me nonetheless.

I am currently in my out of high school college search. I didn't want to be like most of my class mates who have spent several thousand dollars to come to the realization that they didn't know what they wanted to do. To me that realization should be as cheap as possible.

My dad is a Horse Trainer. We have American Saddlebred horses and Hackney ponies. We currently have a little over forty horses on the farm. I "own" three of them. I just had my first baby of my own, out of my mare, to be registered in my name, and so on. I feel like the little red hen. Mine mine mine.

I work with the broodmares, babies, and yearlings, up until they are mature enough to go on to more advanced training, like getting broke to ride and drive. I don't fancy myself a rider of ANY kind, so I just stick to groundwork until I get a horse suitable for me to refresh what I do know.

I work part time at a movie theater. I can do it all. I can do everything from sell popcorn and tickets, to clean auditoriums, to doing everything in the projection booth. I can thread them through the projectors for shows, I can put them together, tear them apart...I am still gunshy over scratching a film or (god forbid) dropping one. I have the advantage of being the only active girl projectionist, so if I need a film moved, I just get one of the guys to do it, and let THEM risk dropping it. Hah!

I'm sure I have more, but I think that is enough about me for now.

See you all! So far, I am very impressed. It is nice to have a place to turn. I fully intend to utilize everybody's knowledge as much as I can. Have a great day everyone!

Amelia

[Allpet Roaches]

Hi Amelia,

Welcome to the forum! Maybe you can tell your parents you're thinking about becoming a roach farmer (maybe not the same but it sounds a little country like a horse breeder). I'd say get tiger hissers but the normal hissers tend to be a bit cheaper.

[Chris Driggers]

I grew up around farms and ranch type settings myself, so I can relate to parents not understanding your fascinations with roaches, spiders, and other creepy crawly critters. Exotic pets in the state of Alabama usually consist of iguanas, and ball pythons, I went outside the norm when I started keeping scorpions, then branched out to tarantulas, roaches, cornsnakes, assorted boas and pythons, assasin bugs, widow spiders, and a couple of native venomous snakes. My mom won't enter my house for long at a time, but she is starting to understand why I love these awesome animals, but still thinks I'm crazy.

Welcome to the addiction that is keeping invertebrates, enjoy the ride.

Chris

[Severus]

Hah, I am working mom over, and if not...well, she doesn't have to see me open that mysterious package in the mail...hehehe

Yeah, I was telling her about a really cool spider I almost ran into last night. It was HUGE and fuzzy. It was slightly bigger than a silver dollar. I wonder if its still out there...I'm going to have to go check. I should have gotten a picture of it.

Ever since I was little, though, my favorite hunting grounds were under a couple rail road ties in our front yard. Worms freak me the heck out. I act like a sissy girl when those things come into play. I even have issues with meal worms. But things with legs I'm fine with.

[Roachfreak101]

Hi Amelia!

Welcome to our roachy home!

Don't feel too bad about the worms,

When i was a little kid, our house was overrun by a geman cockroach invasion!

We had some unsightly neighbors living next door.

After that i did'nt think i could ever tolerate even seeing a picture of a roach!

But education was the big key, and now i love roaches!

We all have our story's here about how we came into liking them.

WELCOME!!

[tina g]

Hi Amelia,

I too am into horses and all sorts of animals. I graduated from school with a dual bachelor's degrees in Biology and Chemistry with the expectation to go on to vet school. Never made it. But I love what I am doing now. I am a Lab Supervisor at Ohio State University- Agricultural Technical Institute. They have a lot of options open for careers. I can actually thinking of a couple you might be interested in.

1. Entomology-- the study of all sorts of bugs, spiders, and the like.

2. They have some really good 2 year programs here for horses, dairy, beef, swine, also lots of transfer programs to go to main campus OSU.

3. Zoology-- study and care of animals in zoos (I believe this is their main responsibilites)

4. Veterinarian

I think the first one might be a really good fit for you. I was listening to NPR and heard them talking to a woman who does research on spider silks. Apparently every spider has more than one silk gland to make silk. They use several kinds of silk to build just one web. Also, their silk has great qualities (tensile strengths) than most of our currently man-made and natural products.

I thought this was really cool!

Tina

[crepsis]

Hey Amelia! I'm Chris, I'm in the same boat you are! I just started reading and learning more and more about keeping roaches as pets, and the more I read, the more fascinated I am and excited I get. Ever since I was little, I've always been fascinated with anything alive, always used to (and even some now!) have pet tarantulas, bugs, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, plants...you name it! I plan on my starter colony being Blaberus craniifer (Death's Head Roach, True Death's Head Roach, Black-Winged Death's Head Roach etc) . Right now I'm making a plan for the display vivarium that I'm going to set up, and as soon as my finances agree with me and I have the basic setup in hand (I'm guessing by the end of next week) I'm going to order some nymphs. Yay! Good luck to you!

Oh, btw, the spider you mention, might have been a Wolf spider. I used to see and catch these really cool Wolf spiders, in Wyoming, when I was growing up. They looked just like a miniature tarantula, thick body and legs, and hairy, just like a tarantula...but about the size of a dollar coin. Once, according to my mom (I don't remember this), I caught a Wolf spider that must have had an egg sac, because the next day, inside the bowl it was in, there was all sorts of baby spiders all over the place!