I have Hissers coming!!!!

[timscrape]

I have hissers coming for Mrs. Pacman!! These will be my breeders for my colony of feeders for Mrs. Pacman. I have been waiting for a long time for this. Can't wait to see them.

[Lija]

you'll love them and be sorry to feed to your frog lol cos they are awesome and you'll want to keep them as a pets one of my friends did just that, he got as a feeders, now they are pets, have very interesting social net among themselves, very cool and interesting to watch.

but i heard they are pretty slow breeders, not sure how it would work if to feed it as a staple. i think it is better to have dubia and hissers.

just saying I bet Mrs Pacman are gonna be very happy to eat them.

[timscrape]

The entomologist I am getting them from says that the population gets out of control pretty quick. But he knows the ideal feeding and everything else for them as well. He has told me how to get quick results. We will see how it turns out though. I plan on using them as staple once the colony is well established.

They dozen or so that I am getting will be pets and breeders. They are his babies so I wouldn't feel right feeding them off.

[Lija]

would you care to share it with us, please
i would love to know how to get quick results.

[timscrape]

I sure will. The details escape me right now by he is supposed to send all that in the package. I will post his recommendations when they come.

[demon amphibians]

Hissers are said to breed at the same rate as dubia. This means they berth once every 2 months between 20-40 babies. the only differences is they mature into adults in 3 months, this is twice as fast as dubia making their population grow twice as fast. They are kept quite similar to dubia. Similar heat and humidity and husbandry in fact you can keep both species together successfully. Oranges also improve breeding with this species.

[poison]

Hissers are said to breed at the same rate as dubia. This means they berth once every 2 months between 20-40 babies. the only differences is they mature into adults in 3 months, this is twice as fast as dubia making their population grow twice as fast. They are kept quite similar to dubia. Similar heat and humidity and husbandry in fact you can keep both species together successfully. Oranges also improve breeding with this species.

3 months? That is not true. With me it takes around 6-12 months in my experience. And my roaches are kept very warm and eat a lot.

[timscrape]

Does anyone know about how hissers compare to dubias as far at nutrition? I would assume they would be pretty similar due to them eating the same stuff. Just curious.

[Lija]

i don't know that, but would love to know more about these guys, all i know that guy i was talking about was saying that he is keeping dubia and hissers separately, same conditions and food, but he has a substrate (cocohusk) for hissers and keep them in a bit higher humidity in comparison to dubia. he's saying hissers are taking forever to mature, amount of babies produced is small and in his opinion hissers due to slow growth are not really suitable to be a staple feeder, but again this is not my experience. I would love to have more data on that. there are not much info on a web as well.
i would love to know how giant peppered roaches would fit into all this too.

poison you are saying yours take 6-12 month to mature, demon you say it is 3 months for you, would you guys share how exactly you keep yours, i wonder what is a difference since growth rate is so much different.

[demon amphibians]

3 months? That is not true. With me it takes around 6-12 months in my experience. And my roaches are kept very warm and eat a lot.

that is very interesting. I have never raised them from new born to adults so i am just going of what i have read in multiple care sheets. You may be right. Many large scale breeders have been wrong about dubia needing high amounts of protien they could be wrong about this as well.

[JeffreH]

Does anyone know about how hissers compare to dubias as far at nutrition? I would assume they would be pretty similar due to them eating the same stuff. Just curious.

Virtually identical. There is some nutritional data floating around that suggests that most feeder cockroach species vary insignificantly in basic nutritional composition. They will have varying micronutrient composition, so offering a variety of roaches or other feeders will still be highly beneficial for your pet. Later instars and adults (particularly males) are much more scleritized (harder exoskeleton); which tends to go hand-in-hand with chitin mass, so don't feed anything that is too large for your frog to handle as adult hissers are quite large and also have some spines/spurs on their legs . The nymphs make fantastic feeders... just remember they can swiftly climb smooth surfaces like glass and can squeeze out of very small openings.

Nutitional Comparison of Roach species with common feeders:
Feeder Insect Analysis

My experience with Malagasy Hissers (G. portentosa) is that they mature at close to the same rate as Blaptica dubia - probably averaging close to 5-6 months to reach maturity after about 6 instars. Their gestation period is nearly twice as long as B. dubia (close to 2 months), but they also incubate oothecae internally and give live birth that can greatly exceed a typical B. dubia litter... probably average around 45 babies and as much as 60+ from a single mature female. This is somewhat speculation; I keep several hisser species for hobby and don't tend to keep serious records on them.

[demon amphibians]

well believe it or not most roaches have pretty close to the same diet. I am going to be conducting new studies as i get the new species. With dubia i know very much about them took me a year and a half but i got them down. Hissers i only had for a few months and ended up feeding all of them off. I had no breeding with them and no adults, i kept them with my feeder lot of dubia's. From my understanding Dubia and hissers do require similar humidity the difference between them is that dubia can handle dry climates where as the hissers cannot. It does not nessicarily mean hissers need higher humidity than dubia. Th higher the humidty the better both species will do but If i were you i would pay close attention to humidity with hissers it has much more impact on their molting and breeding.

As for how fast they mature, every reference on that subject states 3 months. however i do agree they could be very much wrong. As stated before every care sheet on dubia claims dog food, cat food and fish flakes are a requirement. I have completely disproven that information with the help of Jeff. So yes the information we recieve online may be incorrect. after all the only information on these guys are created by people like us who raise them in our homes. When i get hissers i will conduct studies to answer these questions. If i do not have the answers i will find them. Your feed back will also be a large contribuiting factor in these studies.

[demon amphibians]

Virtually identical. There is some nutritional data floating around that suggests that most feeder cockroach species vary insignificantly in basic nutritional composition. They will have varying micronutrient composition, so offering a variety of roaches or other feeders will still be highly beneficial for your pet. Later instars and adults (particularly males) are much more scleritized (harder exoskeleton); which tends to go hand-in-hand with chitin mass, so don't feed anything that is too large for your frog to handle as adult hissers are quite large and also have some spines/spurs on their legs . The nymphs make fantastic feeders... just remember they can swiftly climb smooth surfaces like glass and can squeeze out of very small openings.

Nutitional Comparison of Roach species with common feeders:
Feeder Insect Analysis

My experience with Malagasy Hissers (G. portentosa) is that they mature at close to the same rate as Blaptica dubia - probably averaging close to 5-6 months to reach maturity after about 6 instars. Their gestation period is nearly twice as long as B. dubia (close to 2 months), but they also incubate oothecae internally and give live birth that can greatly exceed a typical B. dubia litter... probably average around 45 babies and as much as 60+ from a single mature female. This is somewhat speculation; I keep several hisser species for hobby and don't tend to keep serious records on them.

good info jeff. you posted while i was writing mine lol. On a side note i have also gotten pretty close to 60 young out of one dubia female. I have seen on more then one occassion this size of birth. As many as i am producing every two months it is only logical that each female is berthing a lot more then 35 babies each. And I have yet to find a care sheet online that says 35 to 60 babies each birth. I dont know where these roach sellers are getting there info but to me they seem to have more facts wrong about them then right. I say all this because i also believe these two species are very similar like you said. They even have very closly to the same nutional value regardless of the size difference.

[JeffreH]

good info jeff. you posted while i was writing mine lol. On a side note i have also gotten pretty close to 60 young out of one dubia female. I have seen on more then one occassion this size of birth. As many as i am producing every two months it is only logical that each female is berthing a lot more then 35 babies each. And I have yet to find a care sheet online that says 35 to 60 babies each birth. I dont know where these roach sellers are getting there info but to me they seem to have more facts wrong about them then right. I say all this because i also believe these two species are very similar like you said. They even have very closly to the same nutional value regardless of the size difference.

I think a lot of online information is dated, much like you see nowadaways with caresheets that are sub-par for herps. Cockroaches are pretty forgiving to husbandry errors and can thrive under a variety of types of care. One method may seem to work fine as the insects are reproducing and thriving, but that isn't to say some other methods aren't better for increasing reproductive fitness and vitality (as we are finding out with improved care practices).

The nutritional similarity is probably a result of similar cockroach morphology and diet. Blaptica dubia and G. portentosa are probably pretty distant relatives in Blaberidae (the prior from New World regions and the latter from the Old World). Their actual life histories and physiology may vary quite a bit despite both being cockroaches.

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...congrats on the roaches timscape! You'll love em' = )

[poison]

i don't know that, but would love to know more about these guys, all i know that guy i was talking about was saying that he is keeping dubia and hissers separately, same conditions and food, but he has a substrate (cocohusk) for hissers and keep them in a bit higher humidity in comparison to dubia. he's saying hissers are taking forever to mature, amount of babies produced is small and in his opinion hissers due to slow growth are not really suitable to be a staple feeder, but again this is not my experience. I would love to have more data on that. there are not much info on a web as well.
i would love to know how giant peppered roaches would fit into all this too.

poison you are saying yours take 6-12 month to mature, demon you say it is 3 months for you, would you guys share how exactly you keep yours, i wonder what is a difference since growth rate is so much different.

They use to be kept like any other roach colony. Eggcrates and no substrate but now I've changed the setup. I'm now using bio active substrate and bark. Ambient tyemps are in the high 80's. humidity around 60%-70% ansd they are feed a diet of fruits, veggies and greens only. http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/...ps519bbe5c.jpg

[Lija]

would you guys please summarize, i got confused here
- food -
- temps-
-humidity
no substrate, some bark, etc....? egg crates?
and you are saying they all are the same pretty much in nutritional value, keeping and breeding/time to maturity rate, did i get it right? size is basically teh only difference pretty much? then why there are a lot of contradicting info out there.

[demon amphibians]

They use to be kept like any other roach colony. Eggcrates and no substrate but now I've changed the setup. I'm now using bio active substrate and bark. Ambient tyemps are in the high 80's. humidity around 60%-70% ansd they are feed a diet of fruits, veggies and greens only. http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/...ps519bbe5c.jpg

I think you have a good set up poison. i mean a natural substrate is something you cant go wrong with. And the diet of veggies and fruits you cant beat. your humidity levels are also pretty much ideal. keep us updated on your progress. when i do my research i will take your input every much into account.

[demon amphibians]

would you guys please summarize, i got confused here
- food -
- temps-
-humidity
no substrate, some bark, etc....? egg crates?
and you are saying they all are the same pretty much in nutritional value, keeping and breeding/time to maturity rate, did i get it right? size is basically teh only difference pretty much? then why there are a lot of contradicting info out there.

Now to answer your questions Lija.
for hissers you want to follow the same feeding, temps, and husbandry as you would dubia. If you would like I will send you my detailed self made care sheet. the difference is hissers get twice the size as dubia and they can climb smooth surfaces which a thin layer of oil or vasiline will take care of that problem. And dubia males have wings that only allow them to flutter.
another difference is dubia can handle a wider range of humidity. I personnally have not proven this however this is word on the street per say, and i would follow it until further information has been provide with substantial facts.
Substrate can be used and you will have great success but you may also use no substrate for they create their own, its called frass. egg crates make much more surface spaces which is good if you have large numbers. If you have a few dozen branches and bark will suffice just fine. Temps, humidity, surface space, darkness and diet are the main factors for both species and they are the same.
The reason for all this conflicting information is just as Jeff said. Roaches can thrive in a various environements and will eat almost anything. some enviornments are better than others. Just as foods. For example i fed my dubia a staple on dog biscuits and dog food and mangaged to raise my population up to 40,000 strong. But when i started feeding them nothing but plant matter their death count suggnificantly decreased and breeding increased by more then 400 percent. look up my thread in the feeder section for more detail.
Roaches have been one of the most successful species on earth for good reasons.

[poison]

And dubia males have wings that only allow them to flutter.

Not trying to bash everything you say but I have actually witnessed a dubia roach fly very well. It flew just like a moth from a 3ft cage. Never seen them take flight from ground level though. It also seems like it has never been proven that they cant fly, they just don't do it.

[poison]

I think you have a good set up poison. i mean a natural substrate is something you cant go wrong with. And the diet of veggies and fruits you cant beat. your humidity levels are also pretty much ideal. keep us updated on your progress. when i do my research i will take your input every much into account.

Thank you very much Though keep in mind I have only been working with hissers for about a year or so.