Roaches seem to slowly be dying?

[gekosin]

Hi Everyone.

I am currently sitting with 2 colonies or roaches, hissers and turks.

This is the first time i have kept them and am a little bit worried. It seems that every few days i find a dead roach, they are currently housed in fish tanks with egg crates and heating pad underneath.

I feed them cat food and a variety of fresh fruit (they seem to have a big liking for oranges)

Any other advice on what i can do would be great!

Just wish they would start breeding now

[Zane02]

Did you buy the roaches as adults?If so it could be a rather old colony and some may be dying of old age. This happened with a colony of Lobster Roaches I had.Just be patient and allow the the right care to breed.

Some pointers:
Keep the temps between 27-31-higher temps encourage breeding but keeping them to high will be detrimental.
Keep the humidity up. I use a large bowl filled with water gel to do this. The gel keeps the nymphs from drowning.
Only feed them fruit once a week and only put enough in so they consume it within a day or 2.
You are doing the right thing in feeding them oranges as this also stimulates breeding.
Check your male to female ratio. A high number of males will tend to fight a lot and forget about breeding, especially hissers.

Hope that helped a bit.

[Frank]

Hi.

What size are the dead roaches that you are finding? If it is only large adults that are dying it could be a case of the older generation dying of old age.

Your cages sound like they are set up correctly, just check that temps are not to high and that there is sufficient ventilation.

[gekosin]

Thanks for the feedback, will re-look at my temps to make sure they are in the correct range.

I bought a few different sizes initially sub adults, adults and even some smaller.

The ones dying are different all the time, sometimes small ones other times like last night it was a large male in the case of the hissers.

Will take a look at the ratio and maybe separate some of the males if need be. (what is a good ratio to have?)

Thanks again for the help

[F1refly]

I'm having the same thing but in my case it's only the adults, so it's likely just old age. I've got a few adults left but plenty of babies and hundreds of viable eggcases. Most should hatch on their own but I'm incubating about 24 or so for a little extra. Keep them warm, feed them often and don't use too many in winter. I made that mistake once and will never do it again.

[gekosin]

Thanks again everyone, seems its my temps that are the issue. I have heatingpads going but they not strong enough as far as i can tell. Will make a plan to get the temps up