Armadillidium badium — Fact Sheet

Armadillidium badium · Armadillidium badium

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Placement: Indoor, shaded and away from direct sun.
• Starter colony: 30 x 20 x 15 cm or larger; at least 0.06 m² floor area.
• Type: Tight container with fine cross-ventilation on two sides and part of the lid.
• Substrate: 6-8 cm of unfertilized topsoil, crushed deciduous leaves and crumbly rotten hardwood.
• Containment: Quarantine new animals for 60 days; keep White/albino stock separate if preserving the line.
• Avoid: Coir-only bedding, fertilizer, wetting agents, treated material, conifer wood and uniform saturation.

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Keep roughly one-third moist, with the rest progressively drier toward the vents.
• Add a damp moss refuge and broad cork or bark spanning the moisture boundary.
• Maintain a generous surface layer of edible deciduous leaves.
• Keep cuttlebone, limestone chips or baked crushed eggshell available continuously.
• Provide more hides and floor space as the colony grows.

💡 Lighting

• UVB: Not required or recommended.
• Source: Indirect room light; strong lamps add heat without benefit.
• Photoperiod: 10-12 hours daily.
• Shade: Dense leaf and bark cover must remain available.
• Avoid: Direct sunlight on clear containers.

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 21-24 °C profile value; do not create a focused basking site

• Warm zone: 18-24 °C

• Cool zone: 18-21 °C

• Night: 16-21 °C

• Keep sustained heat below 26 °C; seasonal slowing is acceptable.

• Use substrate-level probes at both ends.

• If heating is unavoidable, thermostat one outside wall; never heat from below.

💧 Humidity & water

• Working range: 55-75%; 70-85% within the shedding refuge.
• Keep the lower substrate in one-third of the box continuously moist; allow a gradual dryward transition at the surface.
• Water the moss corner directly instead of misting every surface.
• No open water dish or soaking area is required.
• Condensation, foul odor or vent-climbing = excess water/weak airflow; tight clustering in the damp corner = gradient too dry.

🍂 Diet

Feed freely:

• Decayed hardwood leaves and soft rotten wood, always available.

In moderation:

• A small slice of squash, carrot or sweet potato twice weekly.
• A restrained pinch of dried shrimp or quality fish food once weekly.

Avoid:

• Moldy leftovers, excessive fruit or protein, fresh hard wood and chemically treated plant material.

Supplements:

• Cuttlebone, limestone chips or baked crushed eggshell available continuously; no routine vitamin powder.

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Molting deaths → check damp refuge, calcium and ventilation together.
• Whole-box condensation, odor or vent-climbing → reduce watering and increase airflow.
• Slow establishment → verify 18-24 °C, lower-layer moisture and uninterrupted leaf food; then reduce disturbance.
• Mites or mold → reduce vegetables/protein and remove spoiled portions promptly.
• White/albino offspring darken → check for mixed cultures; keep line labels separate from the species name.
• Uncertain pattern or locality → do not distribute animals as pure A. badium without traceable stock.