# A Dummies Guide To Breeding Turkistan Roaches -



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

I have seen alot of people asking on here lately how to do this and have been lucky enough after alot of trial and error to have a very large succesful collony and wanted to share my method with others....

I started with a 2ft glass rodent tank with a mesh lid, i covered the lid with clingfilm cutting a hold aprox 3" squared in the centre to allow airflow.

I placed some old bathroom tiles on the concrete floor in my airing cupboard 3 high, ontop of these i then placed another 2 piles 6 tiles high and 2cm apart with a 2ft heatmat on this and the tank directly ontop.

I have the mat running on a matstat at a temperature of 32 and the sensor is placed outside the tank in the gap beetween the 2 piles of tiles.

I have egg carton placed vertically in half of the tank with an extra 2 pieces laid horizontally ontop, these are the pieces i shake out to collect my feeder roaches.

The other half of the tank has a large exo terra bowl of water gel which is kept VERY wet with regular top ups and 2 plastic jar lids of cat food (mine preffered go-cat to whiskas for some reason), the glass sides of the tank are always wet which they also prefer.

I do not use a substrate as i found they like living in their own crap lol

I gutload them with fresh greens which are gone in minutes.

Due to there always being bugs still in my beardie vivs i disturb/feed from this collony every other day and they continue to multiply.

I started off with 500 large and 500 slamm-medium roaches leaving them 4 weeks before feeding, this amount of time was not long enough as i had to replenish the collony with a further 500 small-medium roaches leaving it a further 6 weeks.

Since then i have sustained 6 beardies with this collony and sold boxes/fed friends pets too.

This setup needs cleaning out every few months, in 6 months we have done this once using a bath rimmed with vaseline to keep the bugs while we clean the tank and put fresh egg carton before returning them to their home.

The odd escapee we get from the vivs is found dead the following morning in the middle of the floor where it has died from lack of heat but using this setup we have never had any escape.

Lower temperatures/humidity than the above will not kill your collony but they will not breed either.

Any questions please ask away and i will help as best i can.


----------



## toad650 (Feb 9, 2009)

When you clean them out don't you loose all the eggs?


----------



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

Yes you lose alot of the eggs but rust me it needs doing!

Luckily my collony is big enough even after this clean out it was soon full of eggs again :2thumb:

There are a few members on here that have seen it for themselves and changed their own setups to get better results, ours was alot of trial and error and when it worked we left it alone :lol2:


----------



## toad650 (Feb 9, 2009)

pictures :2thumb:


----------



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

Heres a link to the quantity lol

When we split the collony into 2 4ft tanks will get set up pictures for you :2thumb:

http://www.reptileforums.co.uk/forums/feeder/476200-cleaning-out-our-roaches.html


----------



## acker123 (Jun 3, 2009)

I have a clear plastic storage tub which is about 1.5ft x 1ft x 0.5ft. I plan on putting it in a cardboard box and putting polystyrene blocks around it. 

My question is though, will a 21watt 16inch x 12inch heat mat warm up the box enough for turkistan roaches?


----------



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

Sorry i have only just seen this.....

I have 2 setups currently, 1 i am using and a 2nd i hope to at least partially feed babies from.

They are in 2ft by 1ft by 18" tall glass tanks and have a 2ft by 1ft heat mat under the entire tank which is on a stat so yes reaches ideal temperatures : victory:


----------



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

Bump :2thumb:


----------



## Tropical (Mar 18, 2010)

I would quite like to see some pictures of the whole setup if you have got any : victory:


----------



## Row'n'Bud (Jun 13, 2010)

Great article, look forward to recieving ours soon but the other half says no *&*%$** way are they ever getting into the bath...:lol2:


----------



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

I have this one..............will sort some more :2thumb:


----------



## Tropical (Mar 18, 2010)

Awesome thankyou. It might sound geeky but i like comparing other peoples setups to that of my own:2thumb::2thumb:


----------



## Gemstone Dragons (Jul 29, 2009)

LOl no probs its how we learn and improve them ourselves.

I have 2 of those setups but am having a cupboard made much like a sideboard with shelf in it to house 2 4ft tanks out of sight


----------



## Tropical (Mar 18, 2010)

Nice one, i have an insulated cuboard in the shed. It has 3 turkistan colonies in it 1 dubia colony and a mealworm culture. It's pretty cool even if i do say myself :mf_dribble:.


----------

