Giant Cockroaches Kept as Pets

When thinking of owning a terrarium, you might be stunned what some people keep as domestic animals. Yes, some love roaches as pets.

What are cockroaches? Well, they are insects, actually beetles to be precise.

These are not so hard to keep. Best is to keep species that require a subtropic temperature, so they will not breed outside the terrarium when they get out and become a pet for one and a pest for others.

Common as a pet is the Gromphadorhina portentosa, a large kind of hissing cockroach found on Madagascar that has no wings. The one in this picture is a male. Females are less redd and have a different kind of shield.

They can produce a strange sound and this species can grow up to 8 cm. They can survive temperatures between 25°C and 30°C, so they may not survive many European living rooms.

They are omnivorous and eat all what we humans eat. All they need is a terrarium with a sand covered floor, a shelter, which can be an empty egg box and you can feed them the remains of your supper.

Since they do like fresh fruits and vegetables, it best for hygienic comfort to remove the left overs the cockroach does not eat, before they rot.

When fed dry food, you better give them a water bowl.

They can easily picked up, although this species might make a strange, threatening sound. A good way to make sure they have enough fluid, is by feeding them cucumbers.

Somehow they make easy pets. Females keep their pouches of eggs in their body to hatch for a period of 60 to 70 days, according to the temperature to deliver about 40 offspring in 2 days. This is called vivarous egg breeding.

Other species of cockroaches that can be held as pets are:

The Death’s Head Cockroach (Blaberus craniifer) Originates from Cuba and Middle-America and lives in tropical rain forests. It owns his name to the fact that it has some kind of skull design on its upper body.

They need a higher temperature, between 28°C and 35°C to survive. Like all cockroaches they are group animals and better not kept alone.

They are not vivarous like the Madagascar hissing cockroach, but lay their eggs in a bundle like most species. The hatchings are called nimphs. In the picture above you see an adult and some nimphs.

Many roaches do not live a full year, so keep in mind that while new live emerges in to your troop, some may die.

Some others kept as pets are:

The cave dwarf cockroach (Blaberus fusca), which is not small, but less big as the big cave cockroach. On average it is between 5,5 cm to 7 cm long. It originates from South-America.

Most spread and kept as feeding cockroch are the Surinamese cockroach (Pycnoscelus surinamensis), that might appear most typical on how we see roaches.

Please keep in mind that if this article inspires you to keep roaches as pets, that you should check if they cannot survive the climat yout live in, since they are quite hard, fast breeding and hard to exterminate pets that can spread germs and diseases. Keep your terrarium therefor clean at all costs.