Cockroaches are a large order, uniting more than 4,600 species. Most insects are inhabitants of the forest floor. Under natural conditions, they feed on plant debris, animal feces and other available organic matter. Several species chose to live near humans. They find everything they need in their homes. What do cockroaches eat in human homes? Insects are omnivores; they feed on any crumbs and debris. If there is no alternative, they chew soap, hair, leather furniture, and cardboard.
The structure of the oral apparatus
Cockroaches have a gnawing type of mouthparts. It is designed for tearing and grinding hard food. With the help of tactile organs (upper lip and maxillae), the insect finds suitable food. To tear off pieces, the upper jaws (mandibles), consisting of chitinous plates with teeth, are used. It doesn’t matter what cockroaches eat, they grind any food with their jaws and moisten it with their salivary glands. Then the food is pushed down the throat. The digestion process is slow; cockroaches only need one meal per day.
Nutrition in natural conditions
The majority of insects in natural conditions eat leaf litter and rotten fruits that have fallen to the ground. The percentage of omnivorous cockroaches is smaller. Along with plant foods, they absorb dead animals and small insects. In the ecological system, arthropods play the role of scavengers. They utilize plant debris, carrion, and feces.
The second most common species is the black cockroach. The insects are large, males up to 26 mm, females up to 30 mm. Among adults, sexual dimorphism is pronounced. Males are elongated, brown or red-brown in color. Females are flatter, black and shiny. Their wings are reduced, representing a pair of short, leathery elytra.
Synanthropic species have foods in their diet that their wild relatives do not know about. Household insects are active at night; their favorite feeding places are garbage cans, a sink with dirty dishes, crumbs behind the stove and on the floor. In the entrances they gather near the garbage chute. What do cockroaches eat at home?
The list of products will be extensive:
- pasta;
- bread;
- vegetables and fruits;
- cereals and ready-made porridge;
- meat and sausages;
- leftovers of any dishes (soup, mashed potatoes, salad):
- flour and starch;
- spices.
Pests chew paper, often eat leather goods, and damage books. Creams, lotions, wallpaper and wood glue are suitable to satisfy hunger. Potted plants are under threat, because insects readily consume greens. Black cockroaches are prone to cannibalism. In difficult conditions, they attack larvae and eat discarded capsules with eggs.
Reproduction
Dubia is an ovoviviparous species, typically giving birth to live young, and gestation periods in one study lasted 48–64 days in a 26°C environment with alternating 12-hour light and dark photoperiods. The female carries an ootheca (egg capsule), containing about 20-35 eggs, until they are ready to hatch, or may shed it earlier under stressful conditions. Adults live up to 2 years, females slightly longer than males. Growth and reproduction rates depend on environmental conditions, optimal values are 25–30 °C and relative humidity above 60%.
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How much do cockroaches eat?
The result of scientists' observations of cockroaches was information about the amount of food they absorbed. The daily volume is 20-50 mg. Over the course of a year, the insect destroys 9.6 kg of dry food. It is typical that females eat 2 times more than males. The gluttony of females is associated with the function of procreation. Females lay eggs and bear oothecae.
Housewives try to protect food and prepared dishes from spoilage. Using plastic bags to store them does not stop pests. Strong jaws quickly chew through plastic. You can safely hide food in durable plastic containers with a lid. Bags with vegetable trimmings and other waste are a real bait for pests. Soggy leftovers are their favorite food. The garbage should be taken out in the evening, before the parasites go out to hunt at night.
Information. Insects are extremely hardy; they can survive without food for 20 to 60 days. Larvae are able to starve longer than adults. Insects have a slow metabolism and do not need to waste energy on maintaining a stable body temperature.
If pests experience a food shortage for a long time, then without water they will not last longer than 5-10 days, depending on the temperature and humidity. Fluid in the body is necessary for heat exchange. Regular evaporation of moisture causes the body to dry out. Closing leaks, wiping sinks dry, and cutting off access to moisture will help reduce the colony population.
Information. In conditions of shortage of food resources, insects resort to desperate measures. They attack people. Cases of gnawing on the epidermis in the area of lips, nails, elbows, eyelids, and neck have been recorded. Pests are attracted to the smell of human waste – sweat, saliva. Cockroaches are provoked to bite by leftover food on the face or hands.
Food preferences
One of the methods of pest control is the production of poisoned baits. To increase the effectiveness of the method, you need to know what kind of food cockroaches like. They have a real sweet tooth, they never miss baking, jam, or honey. One of the pests' passions is beer. The malt drink is often used in homemade traps made from plastic bottles or cans. Bait is poured into the bottom of the container, and the walls on the inside are lubricated with Vaseline. Insects, once in a jar, cannot get out.
A piece of cookie will be an excellent bait for a glue trap. To make it you will need a strong base, double-sided tape or special glue. Insects attracted by the smell stick and remain trapped. The pest loves boiled eggs. This product became the basis of a popular poison bait. The yolk is mixed with boric acid and placed in places where insects move. When an antiseptic enters the body, it corrodes internal organs.
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Saturday, November 14, 2009 11:31 + in quote book I would like to share my personal experience in breeding marbled cockroaches. Why marble cockroaches?
Because marbled cockroaches are the most unpretentious and convenient insects for breeding. These are very popular food insects among lovers of exotic animals, suitable for feeding tarantulas, lizards, amphibians and other animals. The size of an adult cockroach is 2.5-3 centimeters, newborn cockroaches are about 3 millimeters.
Mass breeding.
By mass breeding I mean the ability to provide food not only for your own animals, but also for selling insects to other animal lovers. Perhaps someone will find my advice useful for breeding insects for commercial purposes.
How to keep insects?
Let's start with one terrarium (insectarium) for one colony of insects. There is no need to buy a terrarium on purpose; there is no need to spend extra money. Surely you have some kind of plastic container with high walls (preferably a height of at least 30-40 cm). You can use any plastic container, bucket or other container. Now I use containers measuring 27x40 centimeters and 20 centimeters high. You can find similar containers in any hardware stores, or use a regular canister with the top cut off. We do not need a lid for the container, since it is necessary to ensure good ventilation of our insectarium. Don't worry, the insects won't run away.
Marbled cockroaches have wings, but they cannot fly or climb upward. Marbled cockroaches use their wings only when gliding from a height. So we are not interested in flight protection, but in flight protection. To prevent unwanted escape, you need to coat the walls of your insectarium with Vaseline. You need to use thick Vaseline, it can be purchased at any pharmacies, but Vaseline oil is not suitable for this, since it is liquid and will spread over the walls of the terrarium. The Vaseline strip should be 3-4 centimeters wide from the top of the terrarium (from the inside, of course). Marbled cockroaches cannot overcome such an obstacle - I checked it personally, for several years of breeding there were no shoots. Make sure that the Vaseline layer is clean and that dust, food and other debris do not stick to it. I usually update this protection once every 2-3 months. The old layer should be wiped off with a cloth or paper napkin and a new layer of Vaseline should be applied.
Additional arrangement of the terrarium.
Since our colony will be numerous, we should think about increasing the usable area of the container. It is necessary to place cardboard in several tiers at the bottom of the containers so that insects can hide and productively explore each tier. The result will be a multi-story shelter. The most ideal option for shelters is cardboard egg cartons. Although you can dream up and come up with something of your own. You can fold sheets of cardboard like an accordion, or roll small paper tubes. The main thing is that the cockroaches have somewhere to live. But don’t forget, we will need some free space for the drinking bowl and feeder.
Feeding insects.
You can simply pour the food onto the bottom of your terrarium (container), or you can take a small container: a saucer, a plastic jar lid. I really like coffee can lids, they are very convenient for feeders. If you have a lot of insects, then you need to use several feeders or additionally scatter food in several places in the terrarium.
Cockroaches are omnivores; they eat cereals, vegetables, and fruits. They eat everything they can eat. You can find out more about feeding insects on our website.
Cockroaches need water. You can again use some plastic lids from cans as a drinking bowl. To prevent small insects from drowning, it is necessary to put cotton wool, fabric or other material in the drinking bowl. Make sure your water bowl doesn't dry out.
Let's release our cockroaches.
You need to purchase a small colony of adult insects: 100-300 pieces. Why so many? To ensure there are enough males and females. The ideal ratio is one male to 3-4 females. But, as a rule, no one sells cockroaches based on gender. But maybe you'll get lucky. You can buy marbled cockroaches at pet stores or from insect breeders. We release our cockroaches into their new home and wait.
Features of mass (or commercial) insect breeding.
- Monitor the ratio of males and females in the colony; if possible, males should be sold or fed first.
- Once a month or every two months, place all the adults in a new container, since the adults are the main colony. Keep small insects separately. After some time, you will need several containers; you will have insects of different ages and different sizes placed separately.
- Renew the insect colony once a year; you can add insects from another colony purchased from other breeders to the main colony. If you do not renew the colony, then as a result of inbreeding (crossing of closely related individuals from the same colony), fertility decreases, and new generations of insects are weaker.
Author - Oleg Timofeev
Website - https://pauki-pauki.narod.ru/
Tags:
insects terrarium exotic animals marble cockroaches insectarium
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How to cook
If you cannot buy fried cockroaches on the streets of Thailand, you can prepare them yourself by purchasing them at a pet store. Before cooking, it is advisable to throw them in the freezer for a couple of hours. They will not die, but they will go into suspended animation, which will make it possible to tear off their legs, antennae, hard chitin and head. By the way, a cockroach lives without a head for almost a week thanks to nerve ganglia distributed throughout its body, and dies because it simply cannot eat.
The second recipe is cockroaches in butter. First, place cockroaches in a heated frying pan, and then a couple of tablespoons of oil. Squeeze a couple of cloves of garlic on top and season with a mixture of peppers.
Ready insects are salted and served as a snack. The peculiarity of eating them is that they must be chewed very carefully: the chitinous shell is not digested by our stomach. Those who have tried ready-made dishes have different opinions: some say it tastes like chicken, others say it tastes like beef. But they still look like cockroaches, and nothing can be done about it.
The main enemies of cockroaches
All the main enemies of cockroaches have their own individual, but very effective way of catching cockroaches and turning them into easily digestible food.
Predators attack cockroaches in different ways.
Toads, frogs and lizards can suck in cockroaches with their long, sticky tongues and crush them with their strong jaws.
On the other hand, wasps often lay eggs on adult cockroaches and larvae. Once the wasp eggs hatch, they will continue to feed on the cockroaches, killing them before they even have a chance to survive.
Certain types of entomopathogenic fungal spores infect cockroaches, slowly killing them over several weeks.
Cockroaches are an inexpensive and nutritious food item for many pets, such as iguanas. Depending on the size and type of cockroaches, some lizards can eat up to twenty or more cockroaches at a time.
Feeding cockroaches in a terrarium
Exotic lovers keep tropical cockroaches as pets. Insects are kept in plastic or glass terrariums. In captivity, they try to bring the diet of arthropods closer to the natural diet. They are fed fruits, vegetables, and herbs. Juicy foods (oranges, apples, pumpkin, pears) partially satisfy the need for water. There is always bran or oatmeal in the feeder. Once a week, insects receive protein food: boiled eggs, meat, cottage cheese, dry daphnia, food for cats and dogs.
Cockroaches have a high protein content, so the voracious insects themselves become food items. They are grown for reptiles, spiders, birds, and hedgehogs. It is not necessary to buy large insects. They use ordinary Prussians and American cockroaches, which are synanthropes. Residents of Asian countries consider insect dishes tasty and healthy.
Why breed marbled cockroaches?
Marbled cockroaches are feeding insects
At first glance it sounds strange, but there are reasons for this. Ash cockroaches are considered the best solution when you need to provide fresh, high-calorie food for an extensive home collection of reptiles and amphibians, but often there is no time or opportunity to buy it. Then one of the rational solutions would be to breed insects at home.
Unsightly to us humans, the cockroach, lizards, frogs, toads, spiders, primates, amphibians, spiders, and snakes are very much valued as dietary and low-fat food. It is grown specifically for feeding animals with liver problems. “Live food” itself is not picky about food, eats almost any food and at the same time reproduces quickly in captivity. Moreover, it is inexpensive. The temperature range for life activity is wide, and its upper limit can even exceed 30 degrees.
Habitats
The sea cockroach has many habitats. It can be found near the coastline or near the seabed. These crustaceans prefer:
- Pacific or Arctic Ocean.
- White, Black or Baltic Sea.
Experts note that some species are also found in the lakes of our state. Some scientists suggest that they have existed in this area for quite a long time. That is why they have adapted to existence in salted and fresh water.
Under natural conditions, shrimp and sea cockroaches, lobsters and krill coexist normally. After all, they have similar traits and methods of reproduction.
In search of food, crustaceans move along coastlines. They feed:
- Small fish.
- Carrion.
- Algae.
- Remains of crustaceans.
Since these living organisms are unpretentious, they quickly adapt to almost any conditions.
Pate “For Sandwiches”
Fry slightly chopped garlic and onion in olive oil. Place cockroaches (pre-frozen) and spices here. Cook for a few minutes. Wipe the fried insects along with the vegetables with a sieve.
Sandwich with cockroach pate
Place the resulting mixture on low heat and evaporate until all excess liquid is gone. The cockroach paste should have a thick consistency. You can spread it on croutons, pieces of white or black bread, and decorate with herbs.
Other edible insects
Although scorpions and spiders are not insects, people usually do not separate them. Like insects, these arachnids are arthropods and are related to crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp. Spiders and scorpions are the terrestrial equivalent of seafood. Lice are also edible (though eating them in front of other people may seem a little weird).
Other arthropods that often become people's dinner include woodlice, water beetles (said to taste like fruit), bed bugs, June beetles and even dung beetles!
