Periplaneta americana Care & Husbandry

 Hi everyone. In this post I want to do something different than usual. I might do more of these in the future.

Also, I do not recommend this species to beginner keepers, they are very fast, great escape artists and are capable of causing an infestation if so.

Anyway, I want to share how I keep my Periplaneta americana so maybe you can know something new if you're interested in keeping these.

This is just my experience, it is by no means the only way to care for them.

Regardless, let's get into it.

Housing 

I house my americana in a 3 gallon, airtight storage container with low ventilation.

These guys like it moist and humid, and I keep them at room temperature (25-29°C) and they do superb.

I wouldn't say they're picky with their humidity and housing, they do well in a lot of setups as long as they keep hydrated.

This is my enclosure

You can also keep them in a generic egg-carton setup.

You can provide more hides if you want, and they for sure will appreciate it too.

Mine has been living in this for around a year and a half, and I think as long as they have at least one hide they are comfy, haha 😆

Oh, you would also want to put some barrier on the top of the enclosure so they can't escape, these guys are capable of infestation and climbing smooth surfaces.

That's pretty much all I got to say for housing. Very easy and simple to house.

Feeding

Feeding is also very straightforward, you feed them anything most roaches would enjoy. In my care, their favorites are definitely banana, apple, or fish pellets for protein. They go nuts for it!

Here are a few feeding on a slice of banana.

But you can feed them all sorts of stuff, such as romaine lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, zucchini, orange, and like I mentioned, banana and apple.

For the dry foods/protein, you can feed them dog/cat food or fish pellets.

Once they smell the food, they swarm it.

That's all I got to say for feeding. Also pretty straightforward.

Breeding

If you know these guys, you know they are extremely prolific in breeding. They lay so many oothecas with each containing around 10-20 nymphs. When my colony was still young they had already pushed out soooo many oothecas. 

Some nymphs hiding under the wood

The oothecas look like this.

If they chew on the oothecas, they are probably hungry and probably want some protein. A chewed ooth looks something like the one on the top left.

But anyway, if you got a pair, (even if they're nymphs they mature really quick) you just wait and you'll probably see the female carrying an ootheca! (If she's mature, of course)

Sexing is also pretty easy. You just have to look for the styli, and this occurs in all male roach species. If it doesn't have styli, it's a female.

Image: General Entomology

So yeah, that's all I have to say for my experience with Periplaneta americana. 

I hope you learned something new, and even if you didn't I hope you enjoyed reading and thanks for reading anyway. Cya! 👋