Roachman26
Seventh Instar
Hello all! This is my official first post in my official first forum I've ever been involved with. I may need some help getting up to speed with using all the forum's features and observing proper forum etiquette. I've been keeping my own roaches since 1992 and caring for them since the mid-eighties when I worked in pet stores. However, I really just "discovered" the hobby in September at the reptile show here in Anaheim CA. James, of Blaberus.com, had a booth and after "bugging" him (ha ha) for 15 minutes with a million questions, I bought a starter colony of dubia roaches. Prior to that I had only kept G. portentosa. My entire G.portentosa colony is based on three wild caught specimens that were acquired at the big San Diego reptile show in 1992. I bought them just as a fun pet and the colony is still going very strong after 17 years with absolutely no new blood. There are currently over a thousand and its been a struggle to keep the numbers down over the years, but that is a whole other post. I've been contemplating starting roach feeder colonies for a while now, but until I met James, it just never seemed feasible. It was in trying to find info about my new charges that I discovered all of you. I travel for work from time to time and while I was in Pittsburgh all of last week I had a lot of down time. So, I read every post on the whole site. No seriously, I really did. Even though none of you have ever even heard of me, I feel like I already know most of you. After reading all of your posts from that last two years I feel like I've met you all and gotten to know you already. I'm really looking forward to learning from you all and sharing fun roach stories. I'm heavily infected with the "roach obsession" bug and have added to my original purchase. I've quickly gone from "feeders" to "pets and feeders". I'm now keeping my original G. portentosa ( properly housed now, after all of these years, thanks to you guys ), B. dubia, B. craniifer ( direct stock from out of a CA University 15 years ago ), B. fucsa and B. discoidalis. I'll post pics of the craniifer soon to ask if they are the "true" craniifer. I'm very interested in acquiring several more species, so I'll be contacting some of you for trades or purchases. I feel very fortunate to have found you all, as none of my friends or family get it. At all. I'm sure all of you have seen the blank stares and heard the " your doing what, now?! " comments. Even my hard core reptile friends, people that think nothing of having dozens of cages strewn about their house, don't get the whole roach thing. Anyhow, thank you all for what I have already learned and I hope to keep learning more.
