Ah! Nah, oh!

Hey guys, it's Em.

Today I'm going to be talking about one of my favorite invertebrates, the Madagascan Hissing Cockroach. The Madagascan Hissing Cockroach is an animal which I

feel gets unduly hated. Give them a chance,

I'm sure I can change your mind about them in the next couple of minutes.

Also if you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button. And you can find in the description box below a link to all my different social media where you can

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see the pics and videos I put up of all the animals that I work with. What kind of cockroach video would this be without

cockroaches? Focus, focus.

This here is the beautiful

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach. I have here a male and a female.

I'm going to show you which one is which just by holding them up.

Can you see the subtle

differences on the heads? This one over here is a female, this one over here is the male. The male has these humps on

top of his head which he uses for dueling with other males, whereas the female has a completely rounded head

because females are a lot more sensible than males. One thing that does surprise people when they first meet the Madagascan

Hissing Cockroach is that they don't have wings. There are a lot of species of cockroach out there

which do have wings. These guys don't have any wings

whatsoever. If you wanted to know what they feel like, they kind of feel like polished wood.

That's what we tell children when we go out onto shows to get them used to the idea of wanting to hold them.

They're also incredibly clean. They like to clean themselves,

they like to be clean. Often I see these guys cleaning themselves after I've held them.

They are kind of repulsed by us because we are actually so much more dirty than cockroaches.

Look at them, all those dirty people out there, watching Youtube. These guys were brought over from

Madagascar to other countries, not just for the pet trade as pets, but also as a food source for other animals.

Um, some people like to keep reptiles as pets. I personally love to, and we do have monitor lizards at work

which very typically get fed large Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches as a source of food. They are super high in protein.

I'm going to see if I can get my male to make that hissing noise.

I just have to tap him very gently and he should do it.

Can you hear that?.

It's like maracas.

This guy's not used to being held. He's not one of our working cockroaches,

he's just one that lived in the bigger colony that we have. We have roughly,

I would say maybe close to a thousand at work including all the little babies. We have plenty of cockroaches.

Um, again, they are used as a food source for some of our other animals at work, so we do have to have a plentiful supply.

Males and females if they're kept in the right conditions

they will breed very readily. They can have between 50 and 60 young at a time. The females when they are giving birth,

they actually gives birth to live young. They don't lay eggs. They give birth to live young and what they do is

they lift up a little hatch back here

and they give birth and they come out, the babies, in like a string. When the nymphs are born, um, nymphs being baby cockroaches,

um, they are completely white, almost like a translucent white. Then over the course of a few hours

they do darken down as the exoskeleton hardens. If you are interested in keeping Madagascan hissing cockroaches as pets,

um, then you'll be pleased to know that not only are they very easy to come by and very cheap to buy,

um, they're very very easy to keep. Um, I'm gonna do a

more in-depth video about how to care for cockroaches properly,

um, in particular the Madagascan hissing cockroach, because they're probably the most commonly kept pet cockroach.

So I will do that at some point in the future.

Let me know if that's something that you would want to see. But typically they can be kept in a plastic or glass

container which is secure, because they are great escape artists, and yes

they can climb glass as I learned many years ago when I first started keeping them. They can climb glass, they climb glass very well.

Um, here's this myth that if you put Vaseline at the top of an enclosure it will stop them from climbing out.

No. You need a secure lid, maybe something with mesh, um,

and that will hopefully stop them and their babies from escaping. If they do escape from their enclosure

you don't have to worry about having a cockroach infestation, especially if you live in a

colder climate like I do here in England, because they unfortunately will not survive in a cold climate.

They won't breed in a cold climate. So if they do escape, they're completely benign, you're not going to have an infestation in your house.

They're super easy to feed. They love to have their vegetables, so we give them, um, vegetables such as romaine lettuce. They love

carrot, love carrot they adore it. They also like overripe banana, and I also give them a little bit of

ferret food too, just as a source of protein. Typically they don't eat too much of this, they prefer their leafy greens and their, um,

apple and carrot. Yeah, they love apple too. Um, the apple and carrot, but I do leave a small dish of these all the time,

um, even in between days when I feed them. Typically I feed these guys three times a week, um,

but if they don't have fresh leafy matter in their enclosure

then I do leave them at all times a dish of, uh, ferret food

which is high in protein if they want that. Some people choose to feed cat food which is fine too,

um, dry cat biscuit as a source of protein. But because I actually have a ferret at home

and I don't have a cat, for me

it's just more practical to feed them ferret food. Although not strictly nocturnal,

I do find that Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches prefer to come out at night. You know when you've misted their enclosure.

They do need to have quite a high humidity, because that's what they would be used to in their native climate.

So I spray these guys twice a day with warm water and that keeps their humidity up at about 60 to 70

percent. And you can easily keep track of your humidity by investing in a hydrometer(hygrometer).

Um, hydrogometer.

Hydrometer(hygrometer) I can never get it right. Hydrom hydrogome- hy-hydrometer. Hy-hydrometer.

They like it wet.

Lifespan-wise, they're not the longest lives of invertebrates.

Um, typically you'll be looking at about two to three years. Some people say four to five years

but I've never known them to live that long. There are three kinds of hisses that these guys can do.

Uh, the first one is a "don't touch me" hiss, which is when they're startled or surprised or uncomfortable or under attack,

um, and the other one that they do is a, um,

sort of like a more of a romantic hiss to try and entice the ladies for breeding.

Um, typically if you keep them in pairs

then you'll here it at night time when they get jiggy. And the third one that they do is they combative hiss

so when the males are gonna fight for,

um, dominance, they use these little humps which you should be able to see. Let me see if I can get my camera to focus.

You can see there. There's two humps on

top of his head. They use those for fighting with each other until one of them backs down

and then that one is the winner. There is something pretty cool about these guys is they have these little mites that live on them and

if you look carefully you can sometimes

get a glimpse of them if they're particularly large mites. And these mites will basically live on the cockroach.

Um, they won't come off onto you, don't worry. They have no interest whatsoever in, in,

being on your hand or giving you some kind of weird disease.

Um, still you should wash your hands after handling them just in case, but they live on the cockroach

and they will use the cockroach as a food source, so they will nibble on the exoskeleton.

They will also, um, eat some of the cockroach's food when a cockroach walks over food like apples and bananas, et cetera.

Um, and, not only that, they actually work really well

in keeping a cockroach clean and free of mold spores as well. So it's what we call a symbiotic relationship.

That's a relationship where it's mutually beneficial. The quickest way to kill your cockroach, um, other than feeding it,

something, uh, which is not good for them, is to

um, keep them too cold. They don't like the cold and they will perish, so, um,

try and keep them outside of drafts. Um, don't keep them on direct sunlight. They don't like direct sunlight.

They need lots of places to hide to feel secure and safe. Um, that can be something as simple as a loo roll

um, cardboard bit. You know when you finish a toilet roll, that little roll in the middle.

They like to hide in those or even egg cartons. You can use discarded egg cartons.

They like to hide and breed in those too. These guys are great, I can't recommend them enough.

I think they're a really great starter pet to introduce your kids to

responsibility, or if you're teacher and you need a classroom pet because they are fairly hardy and as you can see they are very very gentle. Other

than the occasional hiss

and the occasional burst of speed, they're not going to hurt you.

Um, just don't go eating them. For some reason there are two-

Now I don't want to be disrespectful here, because I know people who know of one at the incidents that

I'm gonna talk about very briefly. But I know of two incidents where different establishments have done

competitions where you eat live cockroaches and other invertebrates to win a prize.

Um, don't do that because they do have a neurotoxin in them which numbs your mouth. And aside from that being quite, in my

opinion, cruel, if you're eating live cockroaches, um, you can asphyxiate. And in one of the, um,

cases that I'm referring to, which my boyfriend was present at, though not participating in, um, someone did unfortunately

and very sadly die from eating live cockroaches.

Please don't do it. The other incident which I don't know much about, um,

but that I know of because it's quite well documented, um, is Six Flags. Anyone in the states knows Six Flags.

Um, I believe it's in either New Jersey or New York. I think it's New Jersey? Is that right? I think it's in New Jersey, Six Flags.

Um, and

it's a theme park for those who you don't know, and they actually in

2006 had a similar competition and that was for people to eat live

Madagascan Hissing Cockroaches to gain free entry to the theme park. Just don't do it, these guys have very very,

um, spiky legs, which don't hurt they just use them to grip and to hold on, but they can get into your lungs, they can make

you asphyxiate. Uh, it's very difficult to swallow these guys as well.

Um, because that neurotoxin that I was talking about earlier, it it numbs your mouth, so you don't know if you're swallowing or breathing or or anything.

Um, that's not to say that they can't be eaten. I'm sure they can if prepared properly and I have no issue with that.

You know a lot of people eat insects around the world, and they are a great source of protein.

Um, I

personally just don't do it because for me they're pets and not food. Well

that's it, if you have any questions or comments pop them down below. Also be sure to hit that subscribe button if you haven't already

for loads more animal videos coming up.

I have so much planned. I'm really excited about that. I don't want to tell you just yet. You have to-

Just subscribe and you'll see. Thanks so much for watching and we hopefully will see you again very soon. Bye!

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