Roaches or Crickets for T's

[kin-inam]

Greetings!

Is there any advantage for using roaches instead of crickets? Which has more nutrient if both have been fed the same kind of food? How about for the spiderlings, are there roach nymph that are the size of cricket pinheads? Can anybody post the pros and cons for both kinds of feeders.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Taceas]

Not to be that type of person, but have you tried a search for 'roach'? I've used it in the past to get different view points and it was pretty fruitful as far as results go.

I would think roaches have more nutritional quality to them than crickets, as they seem to have more innards which are eaten. They also don't have legs that go to waste, as a cricket would. I've never really seen a spider actually eat the legs of a cricket, they usually end up falling off from my own experience.

I've never had a freshly emerged sling, but some of the lobster roach nymphs are pretty darn small. And from what I've read, several people have used roaches as feeders from day 1, so who's to say.

Roaches (my own opinion on pro's and con's)

Pros:

- Hardy
- Easy to care for
- Breed quickly
- Eat anything
- Hardly any smell
- Inexpensive (depending on species)
- Self-sustaining, you don't have to go to town every time you need feeders

Cons:

- Can't think of any off-hand


Crickets

Pros:

- Multitude of sizes to choose from
- Easily obtainable (for most people)
- Inexpensive (in smaller amounts)
- Easily contained

Cons:

- Noisy
- Smelly
- Die easily
- Don't breed as easily/quickly
- Can be a waste if you have a few and have to order 500+ crix at a time and half end up dying before you can use them
- Unless you are good at breeding them, you're tethered to a petstore/bait shop

A thread about 5-6 below yours... Link

 

[8ball]

I only work with roaches because cricket's sometimes jump out of the box and get away, not to mention they're noisemaker's if you dont got somewhere to put them where they wont bother u lol

 

[Rounder]

I have about 30 Ts, a few scorps, 5 whip scorps and a couple of pedes.

I've raised crickets and discoid roaches. Next week I'm planning to get 500 lobster roaches.

Every summer I raise crickets, I order 1000 crix online and they easily reproduce to give me pinheads within a few weeks. I keep them in the garage where it stays 80-95 degrees all the time.

1000 crix are incredibly loud however and i hate having more than 2 dozen in the house and winters here get too cold to leave the crix in the garage.

So I turned to roaches. Discoids are fantastic, hardly any smell, get very large, reproduce pretty well, but they really need to be kept above 80 to keep them reproducing, I think it's also very important to manage what they are eating and keeping plenty of water or gel available for them. My discoids don't reproduce well in the winter since our house is under 80 and I don't put any heat on them. However, they reproduce very well in the summer out in the garage, and they can be real pigs and eat a LOT of food.

I'm also going to give lobster roaches a try, I think they will reproduce much faster than discoids and I don't need roaches as big as discoids.

I hate going to the local petstore to buy crix, I just prefer to raise my own food sources or order online as much as possible.

 

[Rounder]

Discoid nymphs are small enough for most slings to eat them.

From what I've read, Lobster nymphs are great even for very small slings.

 

[Juraki]

If you prekill the lobster nymphs the smaller slings won't have an epic battle to the death on thier hands. They'll find it, eat as much as they can and leave the rest. You just have to be careful to remove the uneaten remains quickly to prevent mold. My smallest is a Nhandu Chromatus, and I mean it this little guy is TINY, when he's done with a nymph larger then he is, theres surprisingly very little left. I also don't have to feed him daily. My 2" B.Vagans can consume all of an adult roach, I'll usually give it a pre-killed adult roach If I know I'm going to be gone for a few days. What I'm getting at is that it is unwise to feed a 2" T a live active healthy adult roach because it's very difficult to kill, but a pre-kill is no problem. Slings are no different.

 

[Whiskeypunk]

N

Roaches (my own opinion on pro's and con's)

Pros:

- Hardy
- Easy to care for
- Breed quickly
- Eat anything
- Hardly any smell
- Inexpensive (depending on species)
- Self-sustaining, you don't have to go to town every time you need feeders

Cons:

- Will burrow into the substrate (some species like discoids)
- Some Ts are scared of larger roaches like discoids
- Can fly/climb to escape (some species)

Added some cons to your post

 

[duente]

i have yet to try roaches,they are a bit hard to find here,but as for crickets,those things dont last long.are not always easy to breed,die for no reason and smell.The only ones that i kinda like and are hardy are the Assimilis.But i dont find those often either..cant wait to try some roaches....

 

[Taceas]

Thanks for the added cons.

Since the only experience I have thus far is with Lobsters or Blatta lateralis, neither of which fly or dig, I didn't have any real cons for those two species.

 

[Shelob]

Cons for my dubia are just that they do hide in the T's tank if uneaten and won't move for weeks, whereas crix will move often. Also the roaches don't move fast enough when I drop em in the tank to induce the "pounce" from the T. Seems to be more like a "casual walk to see what that movement was"

 

[Fullstop]

For my smaller slings I'm using a cut up meal worm. For my larger ones I'm using crix. I'd love to get a few roaches to see how that would go...

 

[metzgerzoo]

I hate crickets..nasty, smelly, filthy, nematode carrying little beasts.
I feed all of my inverts meal worms and roaches that I raise.
I don't use the climbing roaches for obvious reasons. The roaches I have, discoid, are a bit large, but, with all of the inverts of various sizes that I have, they are handy, especially for my blondi and my arboreals.
For very small s'lings I either feed cut mealies or very small mealies. I never could stand having to deal with escapee crickets.
Buying roaches can be quite expensive (depending on species) especially if you're ordering them each time you feed, however, if you order them for the purpose of raising your own colony their cost is, IMO, worth it in the end. They do live a LOT longer than crickets, are not prone to carry nematodes, are cleaner, quieter and easier to care for on a long term basis than crickets. Yes, some species will burrow, however, they pretty much *always* come out at night looking for food and BAM, they *are* food.
I feed my arboreals roaches and they burrow every chance they get but my arboreals get them every time because once the lights go out the roaches come up to the top to start looking for food and the spider is there waiting.
If you only have a few inverts to feed, buying roaches could prove to be a rather expensive feeder, however, if you have a large collection then they can, by all means, be worth the money to raise your own.

 

[Thoth]

I know people can and develope allergies to roach frass.

 

[aliceinwl]

People can develop allergies to crickets and mealworms too. After several years of feeding crickets, I developed an allergy to them and now that I've been feeding mealworms for a number of years, I'm allergic to them too (not as much as the crickets yet). I still use both as feeders.

Someday, I'd love to try roaches to see how they compare. My allergies are fairly managable as long as I keep the insects clean and do cleaning / transfers in a well ventalated area. I imagine, if I did give roaches a try, I'd eventually be just as allergic to them as I am to everyone else. If you're susceptible to insect allergies, it probably doesn't matter which feeder you choose.

-Alice