I have a small colony of Blaptica dubia for feeding my one tarantula (G. aureo) because I don't like being tied to the pet store for crickets, and I don't like crickets in general (so much chirping). I have had the T and roaches for three months.
Here's the frustration: when I throw a roach or two in there (whether small, larger, male, female, etc) either the T runs over to them, at which point they freeze and never move again, or they hide in some nook and the T never pays them any heed. Either way the roaches don't get eaten. I've left them there for days and still nothing. For a long time I thought this was the T just not being hungry (she's about 5.5"). She molted a number of weeks ago and the result is still the same with the roaches. I'd really like to powerfeed her until she's all the way grown up.
Then I finally bought a few crickets and threw one in. She ate it immediately, so I threw another, and another. She always eats them seconds after I throw them in (several at a time sometimes). Over the last two days she has eaten 13 crickets. I ran out of crickets before she stopped eating them. Ok so she likes crickets and her appetite is intact, but this kind of makes my roaches seem useless.
I have tried smashing roach heads with pliers before throwing them in because I heard that they run like idiots when you do that, but they don't seem to move much when I do it. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Anyway I'm just about fed up with the roaches (pun intended). They are not active enough to call attention to themselves. Perhaps it was a poor idea to have a colony of feeders when I only have one consumer. Or maybe my T just doesn't like B. dubia. The breeder from whom I got her said he always fed her roaches growing up (never crickets), but I am assuming based on what I'm seeing here that they were not B. dubia.
So couple of questions: Is there anything else I can try with these roaches before committing them to the freezer? As much as I like them for raising, they don't seem like good feeders. At least not for my T. If I tried a different species of roach, like Blatta lateralis, would I get better results? They are smaller, faster, and less likely to freeze right?
I feel let down by these dang roaches after all their rave reviews on the net.
Here's the frustration: when I throw a roach or two in there (whether small, larger, male, female, etc) either the T runs over to them, at which point they freeze and never move again, or they hide in some nook and the T never pays them any heed. Either way the roaches don't get eaten. I've left them there for days and still nothing. For a long time I thought this was the T just not being hungry (she's about 5.5"). She molted a number of weeks ago and the result is still the same with the roaches. I'd really like to powerfeed her until she's all the way grown up.
Then I finally bought a few crickets and threw one in. She ate it immediately, so I threw another, and another. She always eats them seconds after I throw them in (several at a time sometimes). Over the last two days she has eaten 13 crickets. I ran out of crickets before she stopped eating them. Ok so she likes crickets and her appetite is intact, but this kind of makes my roaches seem useless.
I have tried smashing roach heads with pliers before throwing them in because I heard that they run like idiots when you do that, but they don't seem to move much when I do it. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.
Anyway I'm just about fed up with the roaches (pun intended). They are not active enough to call attention to themselves. Perhaps it was a poor idea to have a colony of feeders when I only have one consumer. Or maybe my T just doesn't like B. dubia. The breeder from whom I got her said he always fed her roaches growing up (never crickets), but I am assuming based on what I'm seeing here that they were not B. dubia.
So couple of questions: Is there anything else I can try with these roaches before committing them to the freezer? As much as I like them for raising, they don't seem like good feeders. At least not for my T. If I tried a different species of roach, like Blatta lateralis, would I get better results? They are smaller, faster, and less likely to freeze right?
I feel let down by these dang roaches after all their rave reviews on the net.
