# some pictures of my locust and turkistan roach setups



## Jim2109 (Mar 30, 2009)

just a few picture of how ive set my "colonies" up. these are by no means pictures of how it _should_ be done, i dont yet have any locust hatchlings (although some are due anytime now), and my roach colony is not yet filled with roaches, there are about 20 adults in there that are dropping egg cases regularly. 300 more are on their way. just thought id stick up some pictures and explanations for inspiration though.

so firstly the Locust setup. its got cornflakes for the floor, in hindsight id do away with any substrate, they dont need it. when this batch of adults dies off and there are no flying locusts in there (jumpers dont escape so well, flyers do!!) il remove it all. il also remove the heatmats as they arent suitable for heating locusts. you need to use a lightbulb, as i now do. the heatmats are never switched on. the RUB is a 64 litre one with fibreglass mesh over it and the lid has 2 large holes cut out of it and clamps the mesh in place so no locusts can escape. humidity stays the same as ambient, temperatures are between 29-32°C by day, and drop to around 26°C by night. the RUB is sat on top of my water dragon viv to recycle the heat transmitted through the roof by the ceramic heat lamp in there. its got a sand laying box that i never see locusts probing, but there were loads of eggs in there when i investigated, and i can see a few marks where more have been laid since. they must lay at night or something.


























as for the Turkistan Roaches, this setup is made using a combination of information from foggy01.1983 on here who has written an excellent guide, and also information i found from a ton of links on google for both Turkistan and Dubia roaches. again its a 64 litre RUB. the lid has 2 slightly smaller holes cut out than the Locust setup, and again the same fibreglass mesh is used. its really fine so babies will never get through it. the RUB has 2 heatmats taped to the floor, and is kept inside a snug fitting cardboard box. the lid is kept closed, and there is bubble wrap and foam insulating the RUB inside the cardboard box. the heatmats are on a Habistat on/off stat and maintain around 29-35°C at floor level, upto 26-28°C at the top of the "roach motel", day and night. because the box is kept closed its always quite dark, which the roaches like. and the insulation all around keeps heat in and my electric bill down. the stat only kicks in for about 5 minutes every hour, and temps are very well maintained where they need to be. humidity is an ongoing experiment, i think i need a bit more, water gel isnt providing enough. cotton wool and water in a bowl will be the next test. at present im lucky if it goes above 50% RH, id like that to be more like 60-70% long term.

the "roach motel" is lots of egg trays chopped in half and then glued to each other. the eagle eyed among you may also spot the fishing line ive tied around them, this is just in case the glue fails to stop the cartons falling apart and roaches dropping out all over the floor lol. ive done it this way so that i can lift the egg trays out as one "cell" for cleaning/harvesting purposes. the egg trays are stacked vertcally so all waste drops to the bottom. i pick out egg cases as and when i see them and put them into a livefood tub that has about 10-15mm of water in the bottom with cotton wool, then a small bowl on top of that with the egg cases in, and the lid on. this keeps the humidity very high in there as it sits on top of the heatmat in with the other roaches, eggs hatch faster in high humidity. as babies hatch il stick them in a spare cricket keeper, feed them off and as they get larger il stick them back in with the adults to keep the colony sustaining. this way i can monitor how many babies i have so i can feed them off without overdoing it so that the colony is sustainable. i can also control the number of roaches in the main colony so that it doesnt escalate out of control. these roaches are meant to be prolific breeders, and everyone that breeds them seems to have a massive surplus of roaches after just a few months!!


























i hope this information and the pictures are useful for someone


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## Dynamos Dragons (May 23, 2009)

Great post mate :2thumb: im currently reserching to get a colony up and running and have great help from xstrike2x , so i appriciate the post :no1:


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## Jim2109 (Mar 30, 2009)

i added 300 Turkistan adults to the roach setup today, so its populated now. as an idea of how easy these should be to breed, there were about 30 egg cases already dropped in the boxes, and probably 100 hatchlings running around.

hopefully 300 will be 1000 within a couple of months


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## Dynamos Dragons (May 23, 2009)

Cool cool i should get my roaches today, just a quick question jim where did you get the mesh from?


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## Jim2109 (Mar 30, 2009)

Dynamos Dragons said:


> Cool cool i should get my roaches today, just a quick question jim where did you get the mesh from?


1800MM FLY SCREEN MESH FOR WINDOWS,DOORS,REPTILE CAGES on eBay (end time 29-Jul-09 11:02:40 BST)

this is enough for 2 x 64-litre RUB's with some left over.


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