Hissing Cockroaches: A Beginner's Guide to Keeping These Surprisingly Great Pets

By Lesley Atherton

Fantastic Book for Fantastic Pets
They might not be traditional pets, but they are cute in their own way, formidable, sweet, strong, athletic, surprising, adaptable, ancient and completely fascinating. I love my cockroaches, and I want you to love yours too. This little book should really help, with information about feeding, habitat, physiology, substrate, buying them, moulting, co-living, and lots more.
So, if you've ever considered sharing your home (well, a tank) with a group of Hissers, give this book a go.

Published by Words Are Life. Support Independent Publishers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lesley Atherton
• Release date: Mar 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215466704

Lesley Atherton

I’ve always been a writer. I was the kind of kid who would create little books of my own, and I also did quite well at school when it came to writing projects and exams.I’ll always remember my lovely English teacher, Mrs Nash, giving us an assignment. We had to read Seamus Heaney’s poem ‘Blackberry Picking’ and then were told to write our own version.My resultant poem, though simple, used some strong words and brought positive and glowing reactions from Mrs Nash, both at the time and later in her literary flourish of an end of year report card in which she told me how much my writing had blossomed and would soon become wonderful. I loved that teacher so much. She was awesome, kind, creative and a little eccentric. Unfortunately, I don’t have her report anymore, and I don’t have the poem either. I just remember that it began something like this:Blackberry picking, sweet and sticky, Dum de dum de dum de dum, Like a gaping wound.Later in life, I married a writer who became a publisher and helped him out with office and business management. I loved the writing-related work that came with it too - reviews, articles, copywriting and editing, proofreading and the rest of the whole shenanigans. Yep, I loved all that.Later, when we split up and the children were a little older and more self-reliant, writing seemed to become my ‘thing’. It was what I wanted and needed to do.When I got a little braver I saw a poster on a bookshop wall. It was for a writing group, and it gave Michelle’s email as a contact. I emailed her a few breathily nervous messages, then we agreed to meet at a local café. It was a lovely and unforgettable meeting. She directed me to join a writing group and this was what I did. Joining the group expanded my new writing confidence massively.So I began publishing more. Writing a little less (temporarily). And Scott Martin Productions was born.The company became Words Are Life as I moved away from publishing fiction (I am truly appalling at selling things, and nonfiction sells itself to some extent). I carried on writing, ready to publish.So, that’s my history. Good at editing, not bad at imagination and writing skills, but bloody awful at selling stuff.​In recent years I’ve published ‘Melissa And The Mobility Scooter’, which is a gorgeous book of bedtime stories for children (not just girls!) between 5 and 8. Older children will enjoy reading ‘Melissa’ themselves.I’ve also published a collection of novelettes called ‘Conflict Management’. It’s an interesting collection of stories about good and evil twins, managing autism and long term illness, making serious life decisions, ghostwriting, revenge, and working with a male supermodel.My first novel originally came out under the name, ‘Past, Present, Tense’, then was slightly re-written under the name ‘Life’s a Mess... And Then You Die’. I love this book. It’s all about hoarding, family lost and found, dysfunctional relationships, vengeance and hope for the future.And, I've also written what might just be the largest, floppiest book of empowering short stories ever created. It is called 'Feet On The Table'; and is the result of many, many years of work.At the time of writing, I’ve just published my second novel, ‘The Waggon’. I normally don’t have much confidence in my work but I believe this to be the best thing I’ve ever written! It came about as the final assignment of a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. This was back before Covid times, and I was due to publish it, but lost a lot of creative confidence when I was given a Merit on the course. I genuinely believed the writing deserved a better grade, which is unlike me. Unsure about how to progress, I gave it to a number of beta readers for feedback. It is their feedback that’s enabled me to rewrite the book. I hope it is deserving of a Distinction grade, even if it is only in my own head! Better late than never.I have also just published short ebooks, 'Crash Test Dummy', 'Could This Be An Office Romance?', and 'Bigheart'. Also, my books, Can't Sleep, Won't Sleep - short story anthologies available here on Smashwords.So, that’s where I am at the moment. I’m publishing on a few different platforms and am concentrating on editing and writing. There aren’t enough hours in the day to write all I want to write, but it’s getting a little easier every day.

Book preview

Hissing Cockroaches: A Beginner’s Guide...

Hissing Cockroaches

A Beginner’s Guide

To Keeping These Surprisingly Great Pets

by Lesley Atherton

Published by

Words Are Life

www.wordsarelife.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by

Words Are Life.

Words Are Life

10 Chester Place,

Adlington, Chorley, PR6 9RP

[e-mail]

www.wordsarelife.co.uk

Copyright (c) Lesley Atherton and Words Are Life 2023.

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Introduction

Their Specifics

Buying Them

Setting Up Their Home

Their Natural Habitat

Tank

Substrate

"Tank Left Open"

Ventilation, Temperature and Humidity

Heating Pads and Rocks

"Cockroach Metamorphosis"

Humidity

Caring for Them

Who Can and Can’t Keep them

How Many to Keep

Cleaning

Food

Water

Handling

Hissing

Light and Nocturnalism

Moulting (Molting)

Potential Health Issues

Co-Living

Nitty Gritty Stuff

Their Physiology

The Life Stages of a Hissing Cockroach

Breeding

Sexing Your Cockroach

As Food for Other Creatures

"(Glass) Cuboid"

Selective Bibliography, References and Credits

By this Author

Introduction

Cockroaches have been around a very long time – more than 300 million years, in fact(¹). Apparently, there are more than 3,500-4,600 cockroach species in the world (the actual figure varies according to where you look, but the Amateur Entomologists’ Society quotes near the higher end, and I’m happy to believe them). Only around 25-30 of those species are considered to be pests (therefore not suitable as pets!(²)

The Madagascan Hissing Cockroach is one of the species that makes the best pets (others include the Death’s Head(³) Cockroach, the pretty green Cuban Cockroach and the aptly named Indian Domino Cockroach(⁴)).

But this book is about Hissers because Hissing Cockroaches are perfect starter pets. Want to know why?

 They don’t bite as their jaws can’t cut through human skin and can’t even pinch so you can feel it. Anyway, they rarely even try to bite (but you can sometimes feel their sharp little feet as they walk over you!)(⁵)

 Can’t fly away (no wings).

 Not dangerous.

 Not stingers or poisonous (though do wash your hands after handling).

 Cheap to purchase.

 Cheap to feed.

 Easy to house and don’t need much room.

 Docile.

Are even OK for small children.

 Live up to five or so years in captivity (though nearer to two in the wild, so you’re doing them a favour by keeping them). One website said that, in the wild, they’ve been known to live up to ten years, but live around three years in captivity(⁶). My gut reaction is