Roaches as a staple diet?

[trizzypballr]

Ive never heard anyone really talk about this before, but is it ok to use Roaches as a staple diet for Leopards instead of Crickets or Meal Worms? Do you just power a roach with calcium like you do crickets? I am curious because breeding Meal worms seems to be a pain, crickets are stinky and from what I hear Roaches are pretty easy to breed and dont stink much, if at all

 

[mynewturtle]

Roaches are a very good stample actually plenty of people use them as there stample. Go for it if you want them to be your leos stample cheaper food bill for you. I'd suggest using dubias/latertais instead of a climbing species(hising) .

 

[trizzypballr]

Only 1 person has any input on this subject? I was hoping to have responses from 5-10 breeders by now ;-)

 

[SteveB]

He gave you pretty reasonable advice. If your leos will take roaches, they certainly are ideal! And yes, dust and/or gutload similarly adapting the logic used with crickets/mealworms. Roaches are easy to breed, eat just about anything, smell less, and don't have the allergy issue some have with mealworms.

Most of my leos would take roaches, when I was working with them.

 

[aaronawol]

JUST DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!!! thats my 2 cents haha

 

[Grinning Geckos]

You have to have a good breeding system in place...if you run out, it's not like you can drop by your local pet store and grab several dozen. If you're successful in that, then I think they're one of the best choices when it comes to a staple diet.

 

[Sandra]

Roaches are a good staple diet, with a nutritional value similar to crickets. I bred dubias for some time and I would recommend them over any other roaches.

They don't climb, don't fly, don't smell... And in my opinion look less creepy than many other roaches. But, they don't breed as easily as other roaches do. It seems to take some time to get them to breed, but once they start, things go smooth.

But if you think breeding mealworms is a pain, I don't know why would you go with roaches and crickets! Breeding mealworms is just as hard as someone wants it to be. You don't really have to separate the pupae and adults from the worms, that's just if you want to increase to the maxium the breeding rate. But I just leave them all together and they breed just fine.

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

Roaches are a great staple food for leopard geckos. They are nutritious, gut-load well (unlike mealworms), are much cleaner than crickets, and fairly easy to cultivate.

 

[Gecko]

Roaches are extremely good from most standpoints except you need to really produce your own.

Something you might care about is that Gonis (I assume) like Leopards come to expect a certain type of food item if fed a staple so it's best to aquant them with many types of foods when young. They seem to grow great when fed roaches as part of the diet though.

 

[MichaelJ]

I personally love using roaches. B Dubia's specifically. They are extremely simple to house and care for, and like Sandra said they do take around a month to get going into a nice colony, but once its going;it's great.

All you really need is:

large plastic tub (we use 55 gallon rubberneck container) -Non See through
Egg Trays
A food and water dish
you can make a number of things inexpensively to feed them - they just require a high protein diet ( i use a mixture of organic ferret food, organic cat food, Cody's Pro-gutload, vionate,Herptivite, calcium, wheat germ, and a touch of honey) I toss in a piece of Romaine Lettuce twice a week as treat.

Now that I think about it, those roaches eat better than i do !

I use water crystals that turn to a gel for moisture

and all they need is darkness, warmth, and an average humidity

I know two guys that keep them in their closet. We keep ours in a closet in the garage, with a UTH on under one side for warmth as it gets more chilly.

Feeding - I think they are probably the best feeders for nutrition overall. They have a high meat to shell ratio (which equates to high protein), can be gut loaded since birth, and are very filling. A full sized adult gecko will eat two good sized roaches instead of 10-12 mealworms at eat each feeding. Juves and babes can eat 2-5 nymphs depending on the size of both the roach and the Leo.

They are also a pest free natural source of feeders that you've cultivated and know where they came from and whats in them.

No smell, no climbing, move slowly, and like Sandra also said they look a bit more like beetles than roaches (except the males) which is somewhat less creepy.

I would highly suggest buying a batch that will be just enough to feed all of your geckos. Then see if all of your leos will eat them; and then look into getting enough to start a colony.

I believe about 90% of mine will eat them. There are few that just have their heart set on worms.

Lastly, I've had mine for about 4 months now and have had only one of them die. It was an adult male that looked pretty frail. They can live for up to two years and produce eggs weekly.

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