# Cockroach Football



## PeterF (Nov 17, 2010)

While I am not fond of the game- here I mean American football.

Our zoo does a lot of educational outreach stuff. Elementary schools, public events, etc.

One of the most popular things (though less sciencey) is the cockroach races.

For those of you unfamiliar with the idea. We use Discoid roaches with blotches of nail polish to distinguish them. Any quick moving nonflying species should work. Thigmotaxis is a must. The idea is that they are placed in a bottomless can in the center of a board and when the can is removed they run for the edge. There is a big circle painted, and which ever roach gets out first wins.

If there is an event near you, go see it, it is a lot of fun.

Anyway, my idea for roachfootball grew out of watching the discoids and their dog food.

The first time I gave them some a midsized nymph climbed out of the substrate, grabbed a pellet and ran off. He burrowed back into the substrate with the dog food pellet. About 10 seconds later he came boiling up out of the substrate and ran with the pellet followed by about 4 other nymphs.

Similar fondness for the dogfood is consistent.

So my idea is a tank, 20, maybe 30 gallons. Whatever, something with a decent foot print.

At each end is a rectangle of the fake grass carpet stuff they use for indoor golf putting. These are painted with fake roach/bug team names as endzones. And between is a light dusting of substrate (maybe, that's a point I am fairly uncertain about).

There is however many roaches in the tank it takes to equal 2 american football teams (I am sure I could look it up, but I would just forget it by the time I need to know).

A piece of dogfood is placed in the middle and the likely roach scramble is followed until the "football" is carried into one of the end zones. The team not owning the endzone (I think) gets a point, or wins the game, or whatever.

The natural desire is to paint the roaches in two team colors. But as there is no way to make the red roach go in the right direction to have the red team win, I think it is a bad idea.

Painting two mascot roaches might be awesome.

I may need to home-make bright colored dogfood like footballs, or use day glow trout pellets, or other such.

Anyway, I was hoping for some ideas or feedback before I ran a test on this. Point out what I am not thinking through.

Coloradans are big into the Broncos. Any roach/bug related pun on the name would be triple sweet. "Broachcos" is so/so, but might be good enough if coupled with a symbol of a roach in the classic Broncos horse pose. Otherwise better fitting prof team names parodied as bugs.

Or, the school team (Rams) and the rival school (Buffaloes) would also be good names to parody.


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## Orin (Nov 18, 2010)

If you can get them to carry it with any consistency it would be a neat idea. I imagine roachforum may have more input.


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## Peter Clausen (Nov 18, 2010)

Maybe some variation on "Capture the Flag" would be a better fit.

I'd be much more likely to watch a game of Cockroach Football than American football, but that's really not saying much. Your post title sure is engaging though. The idea might sell well to your visitors on that account alone!


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## more_rayne (Nov 18, 2010)

I've seen these roach races. At the bug fair, this cute girl was conducting the race with hissers. She painted numbers on the roaches with white out :lol:


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## geckoboy3 (Jan 9, 2011)

Hmmmm. Interesting idea.

What species do you have to work with? Surinams would work well, but they burrow. As for discoids, I really don't know. There's alot that can go wrong. Try asking this on the allpetroaches forum.


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## Katnapper (Jan 9, 2011)

Interesting and very fun idea! I like it and think others would gravitate towards it as well, if not for their love of roaches... for the uniqueness and curiosity factors. I would definitely experiment and test run the games in whatever "stadium" you come up with well in advance and several times, before committing to the event. Best of luck and have fun with the idea! Who knows, this could be the start of something.


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## lancaster1313 (Jan 9, 2011)

I could just imagine trying to round up my surinams after racing them. :lol: They are fast little girls, but are probably too small to gain anyone's interest. I will definitely try racing them with my daughter when her friends come over. I have plenty of wild surinams around so I can make it an outdoor activity. B)


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## geckoboy3 (Jan 9, 2011)

likebugs said:


> I could just imagine trying to round up my surinams after racing them. :lol: They are fast little girls, but are probably too small to gain anyone's interest. I will definitely try racing them with my daughter when her friends come over. I have plenty of wild surinams around so I can make it an outdoor activity. B)


Lucky lol! I"ve been trying to get some surinams for forever (after my cats got the culture &lt;_&lt; ) and I'm about to buy some from Zephyr. You wouldn't mind sparing a few, would you?


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## lancaster1313 (Jan 10, 2011)

hisseman said:


> Lucky lol! I"ve been trying to get some surinams for forever (after my cats got the culture &lt;_&lt; ) and I'm about to buy some from Zephyr. You wouldn't mind sparing a few, would you?


My culture is very small because I go out and catch them regularly. Unfortunately, there are not many to be seen when the weather is cool. I don't even see any young from the few roaches that I have.  

Perhaps when it starts getting hot again, I can round up a few.  

I could definitely use some advice on their care because I don't think I am doing it right when I keep them indoors.  I am used to keeping them temporarily as feeders, but I would like to have some as pets in a different container. They are cute little things, and I sometimes have a hard time giving them up to the other creatures. :mellow:


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## geckoboy3 (Jan 10, 2011)

likebugs said:


> My culture is very small because I go out and catch them regularly. Unfortunately, there are not many to be seen when the weather is cool. I don't even see any young from the few roaches that I have.
> 
> Perhaps when it starts getting hot again, I can round up a few.
> 
> I could definitely use some advice on their care because I don't think I am doing it right when I keep them indoors.  I am used to keeping them temporarily as feeders, but I would like to have some as pets in a different container. They are cute little things, and I sometimes have a hard time giving them up to the other creatures. :mellow:


pm'ed you about care


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