Just found cockroaches the size of hamsters in my coop. HELLLPPP!!!!!

[guesswhatchickenbutt]

Quote:
Thank you queenbeezz. Yes, that's it exactly.

Welasharon - I know you said it was a fact of life of living in the deep south and we shouldn't be bothered by roaches, but I'm guessing you've never had an irrational fear. I get that it's totally irrational. It's not like a fear of snakes, which - even though I'm not afraid - makes sense. Snakes bite you and kill you. Roaches don't actually kill you, but gagagagagaggabarf they are sooooo gross and they wig me out unlike anything else. I can handle snakes, scorpions, most spiders, big lubber grasshoppers that spit tar, mosquitos, lizards, ants...but not the hamster sized palmetto bugs. And yeah, I freeze under 70* so I wouldn't trade living here for anything

..... and THANKFULLY...these bugs aren't in MY house, but still......shudderiffic man.....

And regarding the anoles - can you really buy those in stores? They're a dime a dozen in FL. They're all over the outside of the house and the yard. The chickens will periodically catch one and pound it to death on a rock and rip off it's tail and eat it like a worm. It's all very Conan the Destroyer.

And the big spider story has made me even squirlier than I was before, thank you for sharing that

I know people keep being shocked that my chickens aren't eating the roaches, but they are UNDER the bedding. You look in the coop and it looks nice and clean. You get a pitchfork and lift up the bedding and the floor moves

 

[welasharon]

Ah.....I guess I should confess that it's the little green frogs and the lizards that freak me out! I will pick up a snake but not those green things.....and don't even talk about skinks......coronary....
sharon

 

[drumstick diva]

I remember during the Vietnam years, my friend (soldier) wrote about flying palmetto bugs as big as a B52. He said they trapped one in a box, and by the next it had eaten it's way free. He hoped it wouldn't find out where he was sleeping. Jeepers creepers, I hate bugs. Thankfully he survived both "Nam and the bugs.

 

[Barrdwing]

Sorry to pour oil on the fire, guesswhatchickenbutt.

If it's any consolation, the really big sun spider is a desert-only critter and I can't imagine it ever turning up in Florida. While I've seen a few eensy-beansy ones up in Central California, they're so teeny they're funny. I mean, yeah, they're still gross, but it's like they got hit with a shrink ray.

I don't care for big roaches either. We had some three-inch-long tropical lovelies on campus (inadequate security at the entomology building, oops) and they'd come out at night in the summer to scurry along the bike paths. Everyone rides a bike at that school, and lots of people liked to try to get both tires to go over the roach; kind of like a really gross reverse Frogger game. When we moved to the desert, I thought I was leaving those monsters behind forever . . . until one summer night, when I turned on the bathroom light and discovered one staring at me from the wall. It was around 2AM and I hadn't been sleeping well; I wasn't well-equipped to deal with the problem gracefully. I staggered back to my room, grabbed a penny-loafer, and bashed the roach into oblivion, then sat down and had a prolonged bout of the heebie-jeebies. Heaven knows what my neighbor on the other side of the common wall thought of all the racket.

 

[Ogress]

I was just reading this thread when my cat silently walked up to my desk chair and tapped me with her paw. I screamed and jumped up without first pushing my chair back from the desk, hit my thighs on the desk, and then I fell to the floor. I think I heard my cat laugh.

 

[off-grid hen]

 

[Anianna]

When we were dating, my husband's family invited us both to SC for a family reunion. When I informed my now FIL about the giant cockroach in the bedroom he said, "that's not a roach, it's a Palmetto Bug."

A roach by any other name is just as icky!

 

[laughingdog]

@barrdwing, loved the story! @bryon, ment the huge ice cave resort built every year. but would love to see modern igloo.

 

[laughingdog]

@ogress, priceless!

 

[Ogress]

Quote:
Sounds like what we did where I went to school a quarter cetury ago - did you happen to go to UC Davis?

Everyone in my apartment block knew when I'd come home from a weekend away, they'd hear the screaming as I discovered the roaches that had come up the drainpipes hanging out in the bathtub. I'd spray a can of raid while they zipped around the tub at supersonic speeds then suddenly fall still. I'd use a long set of tongs to pluck them up and dump them into a trash bag, then I'd grab the bag with the tongs and go screaming down the staircase out to the dumpster. When I'd return, my neighbors would all be standing at their doors clapping! Something about cockroaches creeps me out to my core!