Hi Max
From the way you describe their "death behavior" and your food it could in my oppinion very well be intoxication due to several reasons (besides the mentioned temp. and humidity advices).
- Washing fruits is often useless because pesticides are usually highly water insoluble and accumulate in the cuticula (kind of wax on the skin, easy to feel when rubbing an apple or an orange)! Common insecticides (e.g. organophosphates and pyrethroids) kill exactely the way you described it!
-> Either you use organic grown fruits, use soap ( :blink: ) and a towel to rub the 'wax' off, or just
peel them.
- Almonds (especially the bitter but also the seet ones) contain
amygdalin (a cyanogenic glycoside) which when chewed releases prussic acid (this gives almonds their typical odor
), a highly toxic substance for insects (a lot more toxic than for vertebrates).
- Don't feed too much calcium, it could lead to seizures (and death?)... I observed that when I once fed high dosed calcium chloride as a trial for "functional food" for lizzards; BAD decision! (Well, due to some hungry lizzards the roaches didn't live long enough to observe death by intoxication :lol: .)
- Smaller and/or younger animals often die earlyer when intoxicated (several reasons: faster metabolism; they need to eat more relative to their size etc.). If they eat each other the toxines would accumulate and finally kill the cannibals too.
- Salades are often enriched in 'bad stuff' (e.g. pesticides, nitrite/nitrate) whilst being low in 'healthy constituents'. Therefore I prefere wild grown greens/leafs/herbs instead.
Good luck!
Andreas
