Cockroach information
If you want to rid your home of cockroaches you might want to learn their basic life cycle.
This article will better equip you for your fight to get any roaches out of your house.
Here you can see a small, Baby Roach crawling on Glass.
What do roaches eat?
Feeding Cockroaches or Roach Food
Cockroaches are omnivorous. This means that they will eat both plant and animal matter.
A hungry cockroach will eat strange things such as clothing type material, cardboard, grout, and other harmful chemicals or things that they shouldn't eat.
They are attracted to most food smells including Tuna fish, Peppermint, Cheese, Cake, Vanilla, Pastas and Milk.
The harsh reality of a roach infestation
Cockroaches don't like living outdoors, they prefer to live inside of your safe and warm house since it's full of free food.
Most of the time if you have seen a few cockroaches this means that you have been invaded by them. They are living somewhere nearby and there could be hundreds upon thousands of them.
They will invade your electronics and squeeze into places that you might never find them or won't ever be able to get them out of. If you don't keep roach numbers to a minimum then they will take over your house. Never give up, always try to kill every cockroach that you see.
Roaches can hide inside of your dresser drawers making a home in your clean clothes and they can even get between and inside of your walls!
You will never rid the world of bugs or even completely rid your house of pests. It is a battle that we humans must fight every day of our entire lives. Rodents and bugs will gladly move into your house if given the chance and they will stay there forever if you let them.
If you let a cockroach see you trying to catch or kill it and then it gets away from you, it won't venture out into the open anymore. Cockroaches quickly learn that they must hide from you, and this is in addition to their natural instincts to run and hide.
Cockroaches can withstand high levels of radiation and extreme temperatures. They can develop a very high tolerance against bug sprays and insecticides.
Roaches will live and lay eggs in the farthest and hardest to find, nook and cranny available in your house.
Cockroaches tend to live near or close to a water source. This can be in a kitchen, bathroom, laundry room or outside near your garden hose. If cockroaches aren't any where near a water source this can indicate that the cockroach population has reached extremely large numbers.
Cockroaches can crawl up most walls and even onto the ceiling. Yes, roaches can walk upside down, on the ceiling. The structure of their legs enables them to climb or walk up most surfaces.
Under normal circumstances, adult roaches can't climb up slick surfaces, including glass windows and mirrors. (But baby roaches can!)
Cockroach urine and feces smells disgusting, especially if there is a lot of it. When cockroach shells start breaking-up into dust, that just adds to the already gross-enough smell.
If you've been living in a house that's infested with cockroaches, chances are good that you've gotten used to the smell. Even if you don't smell anything particularly stinky in your house, chances are great that your house-guests can definitely smell something gross and musty.
Roaches will learn to run and hide from you and I have even observed them take a flying leap off of the counter to make a fast escape into a hole that I didn't even know existed!
Here you can see Cockroaches stuck to duct tape.
Instructions for controlling cockroach populations
Don't catch the roaches and then release them outside of your house. Chances are that the roaches will find their way back into your house or into some other persons home.
Cockroaches are easiest to kill when they were just born. They don't quite know what life is all about or that they should be hiding and although they are small, they can still be seen with the naked eye. It is best to take a tissue and completely smash the tiny cockroach. If you let that baby roach get away, it as well as it's 300+ offspring can do severe damage to your house.
Cockroaches can fit into tight spots! Any food that is intended for future human consumption should be sealed into containers with tight fitting lids.
Clean up or get rid of anything that can be a potential food source for these awful pests.
Vacuum up any food crumbs as much as possible.
Wash kitchen counters with a water and bleach solution. This will sanitize the roach excrement to a point. Do this to any surfaces that roaches appear to travel.
Steps you can take to keep roach numbers under control
Seal the outside and inside of your house as much as possible. Pests like cockroaches can fit through the smallest of holes and even a tiny crack can serve as an entry point.
Use plaster, paint and other sealants to patch up any holes or cracks inside and outside of your house. Keep doors closed at all times. Only keep windows open if the window has a tightly fitted screen to keep bugs out. You want to prevent as many pests from creeping into your house as you possibly can.
Never let cockroaches get away, every last one must be killed.
Kill every single cockroach that you see. If a cockroach does escape your wrath, then hunt it down, follow or chase it back to its hiding place. After you locate the entrance to the crack or crevice that the roaches have been living in, you will know where you should set up traps.
Make sure that you completely crush up any egg capsules that are inside or coming out of any adult cockroaches, when killing them.
Kill roaches with Bug Spray?
Roaches are a type of invertebrates. Bug sprays are sometimes chemically targeted to kill invertebrates specifically.
Roaches may develop a very high tolerance against bug sprays and insecticides, often times humans are more sensitive to bug spray than the bugs are!
Warning!
Don't use any chemical bug sprays, powders or insecticides if you have any children, elderly people, pets, or any other invertebrates living in or near the house.
ANY bug spray or insecticide that you use is harmful to the environment, you, your loved ones and your pets. Avoid using them if there is any way that you can.
There is always a better and all natural way to kill bugs than using these toxic chemicals.
Common chemicals and other commercial methods used for catching or killing cockroaches are :
* Bait paste made from boric acid
* Dust made from boric acid
* Insecticide sprays - these cover your household items with toxic poison, that's harmful to humans and pets!
* Fumigators - these cover your household items with toxic poison, that's harmful to humans and pets!
* Roach Traps (Sticky, Roach Motels.)
Here you can see some flat, empty Cockroach Shells or Molts.
In addition to, a new Duct Tape Clump to catch roaches.
Molting and shedding
Cockroaches molt in order to grow larger. You might find what seems to be a flattened dead cockroach that is missing any of the normal insides or guts. This isn't a dead roach at all, this is an exoskeleton that had to be shed in order for the bug to grow bigger. This is kind of like a shell that the roach has shed.
The process is called molting and it is when the roach or other animal 'Sheds' its exoskeleton allowing it to emerge larger.
Cockroaches don't have skin like humans do, therefor to grow they must shed or moult their outer shell or exoskeleton. This shed exoskeleton looks like an empty version of the anthropod that shed it.
Cockroaches are white immediately after molting. It might be possible that cockroaches eat their shed exoskeleton in the same manner that crayfish do. The amount of 'empty shells' versus the amount of cockroaches never adds up. I have never observed a roach eating it's old shell but it is certainly a possibility. Also, roach shells that have been shed, eventually start to break-down into dust. Not only does this dust stink, but it's very bad for you to breathe in!
This Gorilla Tape is great for making homemade cockroach sticky-traps.
Gorilla tape is much stickier than Duct-Tape and way more effective at catching roaches.
Here you can see an empty Cockroach egg
Cockroach Life Cycle
Some cockroaches can be seen carrying egg cases, semi-inside of them until the eggs are about to hatch. This gives the baby roaches which are called nymphs a better chance of survival. Female cockroaches will drop any egg capsules around or before the baby roaches hatch out.
A female cockroach can produce up to eight egg cases in her lifetime and can produce 300 - 400 offspring. Some species of roaches can make even more egg cases and offspring than that!
In some species, a female cockroach only needs to be impregnated once, in order to be able to lay fertile eggs for the rest of her life.
When a roach is hatched from it's egg to the point it is a mature adult is usually around 3 months, this varies depending on which species is referred to.
Cockroach Life Span
Cockroaches generally live for about 1 year, but this can vary between species.
Cockroach Nymph info and General Breeding Information
An egg case, capsule or ootheca of a cockroach can hold over 40 roach eggs.
After the eggs hatch, the egg case opens up and tiny white nymphs otherwise known as baby cockroaches crawl out.
These are called nymphs until their shell completely hardens and turns into the normal dark coloring of the adult cockroaches within that certain species. This process usually occurs within a few hours.
Cockroaches leave their egg cases in places that are rarely disturbed such as behind or underneath your fridge, washer or dryer. Any heavy appliance or household item is a good place for a roach to leave her eggs because no humans will ever find and destroy the egg cases. Allowing all of the cockroach nymphs a greater chance of survival.
Here you can see a Baby Cockroach crawling up glass.
Roach Facts
Cockroaches can survive for up to 3 months without food before dying of starvation and go without water for at least a month before dying of dehydration.
They can smell each other and find other roaches by following the scent trails that roaches leave anywhere they travel. The scent trail is made up of airborne pheromones, urine and feces and since roaches aren't potty trainable they leave this stinky trail everywhere.
Cockroaches are nocturnal creatures and they usually run from light. Wherever a group of roaches are living and hiding, you can bet that it is always a dark place.
Cockroach excrement and scent trails gives off a rather offensive odor. House guests and eventually you will be able to smell this stinky and musky funk!
Cockroach feces and urine is dangerous to humans. It can trigger allergic reactions and is especially bad for people with asthma or other breathing problems.
Cockroaches can withstand higher levels of radiation when compared with people. Roaches can handle approximately 15 times the lethal dose for humans.
Cockroaches are very hard to kill, they can withstand being submerged in water for over 15 minutes. They can also live for a few weeks after their heads have been cut off.
So you see that it is important to crush the entire bug flat. Make sure that you squish any egg cases inside of the roach as well.
It is a good idea to use a tissue when you kill a Cockroach. When using a tissue it is easy to smear the bug. Even though this sounds cruel, it is effective for killing the cockroach fast.
You wouldn't want to see how bad a roach invasion can get so don't ever let it get to that point!
On the other hand, roaches might someday be used for legitimate medical purposes, for example :
Chinese scientist claim that cockroaches have certain chemical elements that can cure heart disease and replace certain AIDS medications. If this is in fact the case, the roaches will have less harmful side affects than the synthetic drugs could ever have. So I say, test those roaches! Find some more cures! Please just take special precautions to keep your lab roaches out of my house!
Baby Roaches can climb up (and down) glass. Here you can see a baby cockroach in action.
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