Granulated Pill Woodlouse — Fact Sheet

Armadillidium granulatum · Granulated Pill Woodlouse

📋 At a glance

🏠 Enclosure

• Minimum colony box: 30 × 20 × 15 cm; secure, smooth-sided and indoors
• Substrate: 5-8 cm pesticide-free topsoil with crushed leaves, rotten hardwood and some limestone or clay
• Ventilation: fine cross-ventilation high on two sides; mancae require very small openings
• Keep one-quarter to one-third deeply moist and the remaining surface drier
• Avoid fertilized soil, treated collections, aromatic wood and resinous conifer litter

🪨 Enclosure furniture

• Thick deciduous leaf litter and soft rotten hardwood — never allowed to run out
• Cork pieces spanning both moisture zones; hides available on wet and dry sides
• Permanent cuttlebone, limestone or clean crushed eggshell
• “Orange” is a colour line, not a separate species; retain breeder and line records

💡 Lighting

• UVB: not required
• Light: ordinary diffuse room or plant lighting; no direct sun
• Photoperiod: 10-12 hours daily
• Replace lamps only to the maker’s schedule; no specialist reptile lamp is needed

🌡️ Temperature

• Basking spot: 23-25 °C

• Warm zone: 20-25 °C

• Cool zone: 18-22 °C

• Night: 17-21 °C

• Maintain a warm-to-cool choice; do not heat the entire box

• Measure air at substrate height with a digital probe

• Avoid sustained temperatures above 27 °C and never heat from below

💧 Humidity & water

• Working range: 45-70%; moist refuge 70-85% during molts and for mancae
• Rewater the moist corner when it begins drying below the surface
• No water dish and no whole-box spraying schedule
• Whole-lid condensation, fungus or sour odor → too wet or poorly ventilated

🥬 Diet

Feed freely:

• Deciduous leaf litter and soft, rotten hardwood

In moderation:

• Small squash, carrot or sweet-potato pieces 2-3 times weekly
• Tiny fish-food or dried-crustacean protein portion about weekly

Avoid:

• Moldy leftovers, seasoned food, pesticide-exposed leaves and heavy protein feeding

Supplements:

• Cuttlebone, limestone or clean crushed eggshell available continuously

🩺 Health — warning signs

• Manca disappear → damp refuge too small, dry or compacted
• Adults cluster at vents → excess heat, stagnant air or overwatering
• Incomplete molts → unstable moisture or insufficient calcium
• Mites, fungus or sour smell → rich food excess and weak airflow
• Variable Orange offspring → record provenance; never relabel by colour alone