Egg size depends on the species. Those big tree roaches (Palmetto bugs for
you FL folks) have an egg case about 3/8" long, dark brown. Who knows what
the German cockroach eggs look like. They're almost microscopic when they
hatch. I know this from recent experience!

For dry foodstuffs, you can microwave it when you bring it on the boat, but
obviously this doesn't work with metal stuff. I've also heard that when you
store rice, flour, etc., seal up a little piece of dry ice with it and the
CO2 will kill them. However, how many of us carry dry ice in the real world?

There are some roach baits out there that claim to sterilize the little
buggers so that they don't make eggs, or at least they don't hatch.

"Julian" wrote in message
...
Is there any way to kill the eggs before they hatch? The tip
about no cardboard boxes on the boat is a good one that I
have heard often. Another piece of advice I read once is to
also be careful of paper labels on tins; apparently roaches
also like to lay their eggs behind these if the label isn't
well stuck on so it can be a good idea to take off such labels.

If there was a way to kill eggs before they hatch then I have
such a hate of roaches that I would seriously consider
creating a decontamination chamber on deck somewhere
and try to process any material coming onto the boat in case
there were eggs in it. (I guess I might exclude guests from this
procedure, especially if it involved noxious gasses).

Does anyone have any thoughts on killing eggs? Is it possible?
Also, what does a roach egg look like? In particular, how big
are they?

- Julian.