Madagascar Hissing cockroaches

is it true that female Madagascar Hissing cockroaches only breed once ?

they can breed many times, but once is usually all needed for many babies, they hold the eggs inside until they hatch

They also have a life span of 2-3 years. During this time the females will produce a litter every 60-90 days.
The two main things to provide to ensure high productive rate is space and heat. The more space they have the more territories for males. Males with no territory don't breed.
For temperature keep them at 85-90. Under these conditions reproduction will get fairly high as the colony gets established.

i feed them to my beardie
HAHA

I also feed them to my tarantulas even the old 'hard' adults get fed to some of my larger T's. Just make sure your T gets them before they burrow down into the substrate.

I prefer the lobster roaches for most everything. My tarantula gets nothing but lobsters.
They are softer bodied and only reach 1 1/4" maximum size. They are very similar to a cricket as far as a feeder insect goes.

I no longer use hissers for feeders at all. I have a small group I kept just because they're interesting bugs, but in my opinion they are best suited as feeders for larger lizards like the monitors.
The lobsters are much better insects for things like beardies, chameleons, and dwarf monitors.
I did feed hissers to my beardies in the past and they ate them just fine. I almost had a problem once though, I pushed the limit on the size and nearly had a beardie choke on one. That instance caused a change in my feeding routine and as soon as my lobster colony was large enough to support my lizards I went with them entirely.

Yup Clay lobsters are great feeders for almost anything, I use them for my ackies also.
I just like the hissers for food for my bigger tarantulas[ it's kind of neet watching and Hearing the melee] I use t6he smaller ones for other animals [like my pictus]
My colonie of lobsters are not big enough for feeding yet.
I also use death's heads for feeders, them and my hissers are the only colonies big enough and productive enough for feeding at this time.
I breed B. giganteus also, but I must admit these guys are slow growers.

I was given a small group of hissers a few days ago. I have 5; 2 males and 3 females. There's one female that is rather listless so I thought maybe she was getting ready to deliver...I really have no clue how old these adults are. Today, I noticed some small bugs running around on the adults. Do the babies do this, hang out on the parents, I mean?

Baby hissers look pretty much like little adults within a few hours of birth, and they are fairly good sized.
Here is a picture of a mother and her just delivered litter to show the size reference.


The babies do not hang out with the parents. They are around the female for a short while, but then disperse.
Since babies are pretty obvious I'm going to venture that your hissers have mites. This may not be the case, but mites are common in roach colonies.
As I understand it, they are not a mite species that will threaten your reptiles, they are host specific. Regardless, they will multiply and should be eliminated if possible.
With only 5 roaches, it shouldn't be a problem. Just keep them well cleaned.

I have been told of one method to remove mites which is to shake the roach in a zip lock bag containing flour. The mites will remain in the flour and you mist the roach with plain water once you're finished to clean the flour off them.
Clean the cage at the same time to remove any strays and/or eggs in the cage.
A repeat treatment or two may be needed to completely eliminate them.

Ahh...crud. That's what I thought they were but I was soooo hopeful that they weren't! I just got these things! Darn it! LOL!!

I did some online searching on mites yesterday and two sites recommended the same thing you just did; the flour in a ziplock bag trick. I'll be doing that in a few minutes but I'm worried about how hard I can shake them in the flour...If I'm too gentle, the mites wont shake off but if I'm too rough, wont I hurt the hissers?

Thank you so much for your help, and the picture for size reference. The one site I found with a "baby" picture was too close up and I couldn't see just how big they were.

...Off to de-mite 5 adults and 7 nymphs...*sigh*