Gah!

I am so BUMMED right now!

I got three Madagascar hissing cockroaches from a college professor a few months ago (2 males 1 female) and I've gotten very attached to the little things, especially the males. I know they're just roaches, but when you have a small number of anything it's hard not to get attached to them. x_x I just got a shiny new terrarium for them for my birthday and they were all settled in nicely.

So a couple weekends ago I two millepedes from a stand at the Family Pet Expo. The girl who sold them to me suggested I get them because she said (and another worker agreed with her) that they made great tank mates for roaches, especially since they eat the same kind of food. So, like an idiot, I believed her at face value and introduced them in with my roaches when I got home. One of the millipedes died the next day (which I was peeved about, but these things happen, I'm fairly certain it was injured). A few days ago I noticed that one of my roaches was acting funny. He was hyperactive and disoriented, and was over sensitive to me whenever I picked him up. His condition progressively got worse over the next couple of days, and he kept falling over onto his back and when I'd hold him he would shake convulsively. Soon my other male started displaying the same symptoms, and today I found both of them on their backs, twitching uncontrollably. I'd noticed a red substance that my millipede would secrete whenever I handled it, and after seeing how my roaches were behaving I started wondering if it was poisonous. So I looked online and sure enough, they secrete cyanide and people were advised not to house them with roaches because of this...

I've since moved my two poisoned males into a separate container, and my female into another one... Luckily it seems she did not ingest any poison. I'm worried that I'll lose my two males, and I don't know if there's any chance of them recovering or if it would be better for me to put them out of their misery. :/