Big Al is now 16g after molted and viciously feeding for a month!

Just put him on a scale, and he’s now 16g! That’s 20% weight gain in a month. Hopefully that wasn’t his final molt though, I thought it was, but it seems possible that it really wasn’t since his nose had flatten up a bit.

18 alive, cleaned substrate

Thinned out the substrate to keep it under 1/2 inch, and took out old damped plant materials, and replenished top substrate with fresh sand.

A feeding routine has been established. Daily dried grass/hay, with some finely crushed Eucalyptus globulus, they finished them every day. Offered them commercial Tortoise food as treat once a week. Also a few pieces of crushed Liquidambar formosana, Eucalyptus torelliana or Eucalyptus robusta as treats once in awhile.

I noticed their appetite have increased dramatically, either most of them have done their molting into young adults or it is the weather, since temp has dropped to around 24C in last 30 days. Guess we will find out either summer next year, or when we have the first batch of babies after a few years, we’ll see.

Big Al did his final molt!

After 2 months of waiting, Big Al finally did it, by the look of his shape, this should be his final molt. He’s not very big as it turned out, but his final size might be a lot bigger, as we know roaches will grow in size quite a bit after molting.