Meet 8-Year-Old, Shelby Counterman, Who Has Thousands Of Cockroaches As Her Treasured Pets

#1

An eight-year-old Oklahoma girls' room is filled with thousands of roaches, but the pests don't bug her at all. Second grader Shelby Counterman, from outside Tulsa, has been taking care of a colony of Madagascar hissing cockroaches for the last five years. She calls them her pets.

#2

According to her mother, Meg Counterman, Shelby grew the obsession with the bugs when she was 18 months old. She admits it was creepy at first -- roaches are after all, one of the most detested pests. Nevertheless, she allowed the unusual interest to foster.

She said,"I couldn't say no. It's hard not to let her follow her interests".

#3

It may look like your typical little girl's bedroom but look closer. She has roaches in her room, hissing cockroaches. They are Shelby's pets. She began with a small batch of male cockroaches, but she later decided that she wanted them to breed and brought in females. The African insects, which have no wings and a single pair of antennae, began multiplying exponentially. When Shelby was three, she started collecting after a neighbour gave her his collection.

Shelby said,"MrGibbs gave me some but they were only boys. So I went to Safari Joe's and told them about my problem that I didn't have babies. So they gave me some more boys and girls and then I started to breed".

#4

Her mother dislike the hissing cockroach and she was very upset when she recently heard this. However the invertebrate keeper was shocked when she heard a local news anchor saying that she detested the hissing bugs. Shelby sent a picture to the journalist and invited her to fight her fears and meet her beloved pets.

She keeps her pets in special plastic containers, as well as aquariums with Vaseline linings to keep her prized possessions from escaping and scampering around the house.

#5

Now she has hundreds, no, make that thousands of cockroaches! She's shared her passion for bugs with her family, her friends and at Vacation Bible School. Her mom says it's a little creepy but she's gotten used to living with the critters.

Her mom said,"A very wise friend told me a long time ago, that you can't instill your own fears and prejudices into your children. and you have to let them follow what they're interested in. This is something, when she was 18 months old when she started being attracted to bugs."

#6

As a backup plan, the family also keeps a bearded dragon lizard named "Toothless" in case any roaches escape. The Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches are, as the name suggests, native to the Island of Madascar. They have a lifespan of 1-3 years. Hissing is their trademark. This sound is made by forcing air through small holes in their bodies. They do not fly or bite. However, they’re known to reproduce. A pair could produce as many as 60 nymph roaches.

#7 Watch video and share!