That Reptile Blog – Reptile, Amphibian and Exotic Pet Care and Information

Note:  Please see my article Product Review: Gel Based Water Sources for House Crickets for additional information on cricket-keeping.

According to studies carried out at the Bronx Zoo, house crickets, Acheta domestica, should be allowed to feed for at least 48 hours before themselves being offered to captive reptiles and amphibians as a dietary item.  This time period allows the crickets to absorb nutrients that will, ideally, offset their naturally poor ratio of calcium to phosphorus (which should, in most situations, be 2:1).

Feeding Crickets

Chick laying mash, trout chow and baby cereal can all be fed to crickets, but none are formulated specifically for these insects, and each has disadvantages.  When feeding crickets in public collections or at home, I now rely exclusively upon commercial cricket foods.  The following products are all very well-accepted by these perpetually hungry little beasts, and the nutritional profiles of the diets (including calcium content) are based on the latest available research:

Ziegler Monster High Calcium Cricket Food

Orange Cube Cricket Food

R-Zilla Gutload Cricket Supplement

Dietary Supplements

As has always been my practice, I add a bit of Tetra-Min Flake Fish Food to the commercial cricket foods.  Both are consumed ravenously, and the wide variety of ingredients in the flakes helps assure that the crickets are receiving a healthful diet.

In addition, I add to their diets the powdery residue left at the bottom of oatmeal, wheat germ, nut and whole grain cereal containers.  Oranges, yams, kale, carrots and other fruits and vegetables should also be provided on occasion, but only in amounts that are consumed quickly, lest mold develop.

Click: The Orange Spotted Roach: an Interesting Pet and Valuable Food for Reptiles, Amphibians, Invertebrates, Birds and Fishes – Part 1, to read the first part of this article.

Substrate

When keeping large colonies as a food source for other animals, the roaches should be well-supplied with cardboard egg crate, paper towel/toilet paper rolls or crumpled sheets of cardboard upon which to climb.  The bottom of the enclosure should be kept bare…substrate will complicate cleaning, encourage mold and make it difficult to locate small roaches.

At cleaning time, the cardboard, to which most of the roaches will cling, can be removed while the enclosure is washed (use hot water and bleach or table salt) and dried.  The cardboard should be replaced from time to time as well.

Fecal material from the bottom of the enclosure, and old cardboard, should be frozen before being discarded to prevent un-noticed nymphs from establishing feral colonies.

If you are keeping smaller numbers of roaches as pets, you may wish to set up a naturalistic terrarium.  R Zilla Alfalfa Bedding or Coconut Husk may be used as a substrate.  Stock your terrarium with rocks, driftwood, and plastic reptile shelters…males will establish territories around and under such structures.  In such a set-up you should be able to observe them competing for females (see below), and will be privy to other interesting behaviors not easily seen in a crowded colony situation.

Be sure to remove nymphs from time to time, as territoriality seems to break down under crowded conditions, and there will consequently then be less for you to observe.

Treated in this manner, as you might any other unusual pet, orange-spotted roaches will provide you with many surprises.  We still have a great deal to learn about these insects…observant keepers stand a good chance of learning something new.

Water

I use R-Zilla Cricket Calcium Drink Supplement as the sole water source for all roach species.  This and similar gel-based products eliminates the need for providing fruit as a water source, which can mold and cause health problems (a small amount of fruit added to the diet is a good idea) and supplies additional calcium to the insects.

Feeding

Jurassi-Diet or R-Zilla Cricket Food should be used as the basis of the diet.  Both are readily accepted, and help to improve the roaches’ calcium: phosphorous ratio (in the event they are to be used as pet food).

Orange spotted roaches accept a wide variety of foods…but this should not trick us into thinking that they can survive on whatever is at hand.  They should be provided a balanced diet, both for their health and that of the animals to which they may be fed.

To the basic diet of commercial cricket food I always add tropical fish food flakes (I have found such to be useful with all roach species, crickets, millipedes and many other invertebrates), powdered baby food, and a bit of wheat germ. They should also be fed fruits and vegetables once or twice weekly.

An interesting article on cockroach diversity and evolution (London Museum of Natural History) is posted at:

http://blattodea-culture-group.org/content/cockroaches-amazing-diversity

Image referenced from Wikipedia Commons, here.

Hello, Frank Indiviglio here.

The orange-spotted or guyana roach, Blaptica dubia, often starts out as pet food but winds up as a pet. It’s small wonder, as these attractive insects are very interesting in their own right, and most agreeable to exhibiting their natural behaviors to the patient observer.

Coming into Their Own

Roaches are finally getting the attention they deserve from pet keepers, and even zoos are beginning to highlight them in exhibits.  I housed many species at the Staten Island Zoo, and a new exhibit at the Bronx Zoo features a hollow tree stocked with thousands of Malagasy hissing roaches.  But my favorite was set up many years ago at the Cincinnati Zoo’s groundbreaking Insectarium….visitors looked through a cutaway cabinet at a “kitchen” stocked with a colony American roaches.  The huge insects were fed from cereal boxes, sandwiches left on a table and so forth…years later I tried to replicate this at the Bronx Zoo, for Norway rats, but the idea failed to impress my curator!

Classification and Diversity

Cockroaches, with a fossil record stretching back 300 million years, are classified within the order Blattaria (or Blattodea).  Over 4,000 species have been described, and entomologists believe that as many more may be awaiting discovery.  The largest species, Latin America’s Megaloblatta baberoides, sports a 7 inch wingspan while the heaviest, Macropameothia rhinoceros of Australia, weighs in at 1 ½ ounces.  The lime green banana roach, Panchlora nivea, sometimes available in the pet trade, is to my eye the most attractive.

Orange-Spotted Roaches

The orange-spotted roach ranges from tan to reddish-brown and black in color, and is mottled with light orange dots.  It reaches 1 ¾ inches in length.  The natural range is usually given as northern South America, but there are records from as far north as Panama and as far south as northern Argentina.

As a Feeder Insect

This roach makes an excellent feeder insect as it rarely flies and cannot scale glass or plastic (unless either is very dirty!).   Adults and juveniles alike have a soft exoskeleton, and are thus an ideal food for amphibians, birds, spiders, scorpions, fishes, reptiles and certain small mammals (I have used them as treats for flying squirrels and deer mice).  The nymphs are only .1 inches in length, and eagerly accepted by tiny amphibians and reptiles.

CAPTIVE HUSBANDRY

Note: long term exposure to insect colonies may lead to sensitivities or allergies in some people.  You may wish to consult your doctor in this regard.

Captive Habitat

The Enclosure

Orange spotted roaches can be housed in plastic terrariums, aquariums or sweater boxes.  Sweater boxes should be ventilated with screened-over panels cut into the lids and sides.  Fine-meshed “insect screening” is best, as the nymphs are quite small.  Be sure that the mesh size on commercial terrarium lids is small as well – if unsure, add a second layer of finer mesh.  The roaches can chew through some plastic screening, so use metal when re-screening.

Heat and Humidity

This species tolerates temperatures from 68-95 F, with breeding and growth being most rapid at higher temperatures.  If you are interested in observing them, and not in producing large numbers as a food source, 75 F is ideal.

Heat may be provided by an incandescent bulb during the day and a reptile night light during the evening.  I highly recommend the latter…the roaches will feed by day, but really put on a show at night, and a night light will allow you to observe them doing so.  A ceramic heater or under-tank heater may also be used.  In all cases watch that you do not over-dry the terrarium (keep an eye on shedding, please see below).

Orange-spotted roaches tolerate far drier conditions than do most of their relatives.  Technically, they can run into difficulty in molting if a bit of humidity is not provided, but this is not common.

Misting the enclosure can result in the growth of mold and fungi, some species of which may be linked to colony failure.  If conditions warrant it, mist lightly (glass only, not cardboard if such is used as a substrate) and be sure the glass dries within an hour or so.

Click: The Orange Spotted Roach: an Interesting Pet and Valuable Food for Reptiles, Amphibians, Invertebrates, Birds and Fishes – Part 2, to read the second part of this article.

Image referenced from Wikipedia Commons, here.

The process of hibernation (or brumation) in reptiles and amphibians seems subject to a great many factors.  For example, I have noticed that spotted and Eastern box turtles, and other temperate North American species, vary greatly in this regard.  In captivity, wild-caught individuals usually slow down (activity and feeding) during the winter, even if kept warm and given a photoperiod of 12 hours.  Captive-born animals of the same species most often continue to feed throughout the winter.

Green frogs, garter snakes, musk turtles and others, however, usually stay active if kept warm in winter, even if wild-caught.

A recent email from a colleague brought up the subject of bearded dragons.  His animal becomes lethargic and ceases feeding in October, despite a long photoperiod, and high ambient and basking temperatures.  Most bearded dragons in the US pet trade are several generations removed from the wild, yet the tendency to hibernate persists in some.  Many bearded dragons, however, remain active all year.   I am wondering if what we are seeing is related to the natural range of our pets’ ancestors… perhaps those from certain areas hibernate in the wild and retain this pattern in captivity?

A Request for Help

Internal (circadian) rhythms exert their influence on most animals, and an understanding of their workings is vital from both a pet-keeping and conservation point of view.  I would greatly appreciate being informed of any seasonal changes in activity that you notice among your pets.

Some North American turtles are incredibly cold-tolerant, and are being studied to see if the mechanisms they use might be applied to the possible storage of human organs destined for transplant.  The abstract of an interesting The Journal of Herpetology article is posted at:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1565569

If you’re looking for general care information on bearded dragons, check out my article: Bearded Dragon Natural History and Captive Care.

The house cricket is something of an insect oddity…at once both an adaptable, widely introduced species and a somewhat delicate captive.  Native to southwestern Asia, it fares poorly in the damp conditions favored by field crickets and other North American species.

Providing a Water Source: the advantages of gels

House crickets will not survive long in damp conditions, but they do need to drink quite a bit of water, and herein lays the main problem in keeping them.

The crickets drown rapidly in standing water, and cotton or gravel-filled bowls foul quickly.  Stagnant water, and mold on damp sponges or oranges (2 other common methods of providing water) supports bacteria that seems, for reasons not completely understood, to rapidly decimate cricket colonies.  Misting the colony, a useful technique as regard many insects, is worse, and again will result in heavy losses.

The advent of gel-based cricket water substitutes is one of the most important recent innovations in food animal maintenance.  These products save time and money by cutting down on losses.  More importantly, crickets that live longer have improved chances of consuming a nutritious diet, and thus are themselves a more valuable pet food.

I use Cricket Drink and R-Zilla Cricket Calcium Drink Supplement exclusively.  Both are fortified with calcium and other nutrients, and are readily consumed by crickets.  No other water source is necessary.  Millipedes and sow bugs will also feed upon these gel cubes, and they would be well-worth trying on scorpions and tarantulas.

A Warning: Condensation

Even when fruit and standing water is dispensed with, be sure to guard against condensation buildup.  This occurs most frequently in crowded enclosures, and will wipe out your colony in short order.  Adequate ventilation and roomy holding containers are of key importance in avoiding damp conditions.

Next time I’ll review some commercial cricket diets.  Please write in with your own tips for keeping crickets and other food animals.

You can read about the natural history of the house cricket here.