# Live feed locust breeding - save myself from the horrible costs!



## Andy (May 15, 2005)

Im looking for someone who has experience in breedling locust, my local petsop charges 40p EACH!
Was wondering if it is really worth breeding them as opposed to buying them at this price.


As for nutrition, are they as good as brown crickets?


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## 8 leg wonder (May 15, 2005)

your lucky to be able to purchase them they are not available in Canada. as for breeding them it's only worth it if you have lots of Ts or a reptile to feed them to.


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## jadormdrache (May 16, 2005)

probably easier to breed non-climbing roaches or mealworms,less chances of escape


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## Dark Raptor (May 17, 2005)

I've been breeding Locusta migratoria, more than one year ago. I'll tell you: crixs and roaches are much better "feeder", they are cheaper and easier to breed.

Here is one topic about that:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=39089


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## Andy (May 17, 2005)

Dark Raptor said:
			
		

> I've been breeding Locusta migratoria, more than one year ago. I'll tell you: crixs and roaches are much better "feeder", they are cheaper and easier to breed.
> 
> Here is one topic about that:
> http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=39089


Could you advise me on how to breed crickets?
Temperatures to keep them at etc, I may consider this option as my geckos munch about 8 a day.


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## Cirith Ungol (May 17, 2005)

I can give you advice on how to breed B. dubia roaches. Best feeders arround imho.

Take a large plastic box with a lid. Drill many holes through the lid so a lot of air can get in. Put in a handfull of adult dubia roaches, place som egg crates on the floor, toss in some fruit and vegetables, like cucumber (very good!), bananas, orange, and anything you like basically - except onions or other "sharp" vegetables. Throw in some ground up dogfood. Close the box. Done.

To speed up the breeding you can put a heat pad under one side of the container which keeps arround 35 degrees celcius at all times.

Put in more fruit and vegetables as soon as you see that the old ones are eaten or dried out.

Clean the box once every 6 months to 1 year.

If starting with 50 roaches you'll have about 400-500 roaches running arround in the tank within 6 months, all at various stages of development.

For additional info read the dubia breeding sticky. Lots of good info there!

B. dubias are about 584 times easier to breed than crickets. They don't make a sound, they don't stink and they are very likely to never give you any trouble in regard to escapes.


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## Dark Raptor (May 17, 2005)

Andy said:
			
		

> Could you advise me on how to breed crickets?
> Temperatures to keep them at etc, I may consider this option as my geckos munch about 8 a day.


Check info here:
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=39862
http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/showthread.php?t=40804

...and I can agree with Cirith Ungol, roaches are the best feeders, except they are 585 times easier to breed    I've got now Nauphoeta cinerea and Blaptica dubia, Gromphadorhina portentosa and Blaberus giganteus. They are great.


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## Cirith Ungol (May 17, 2005)

Dark Raptor said:
			
		

> except they are 585 times easier to breed


Oh, sorry! My bad! 585 times ofcourse!!


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## Andy (May 18, 2005)

Thanks for the info, 
main reason I dont want to breed roaches is because my geckos won't eat them. And I only have 2 T spiderlings atm so it really isnt worth it. But I may come to that option as I develop more T's and I get mantids.


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## Raqua (May 18, 2005)

Cirith Ungol said:
			
		

> B. dubias are about 584 times easier to breed than crickets.


Well, I'm pretty sure, crix are easier to breed ...    
And their life cycle is VERY short compared to roaches which makes me being able to control the production depending on my needs ... right now I'm expecting an eggsac to hatch, so I already have tons of pinheads ready. They will be in the right size when the sac hatches. You can't do this with roaches because of the log cycle.


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## james (May 18, 2005)

*Roaches*

What kind of geckos? I feed all my geckos Blaptica dubia and for the one or two really picky one they love Blatta lateralis. I've pretty much found that any insect eating animal loves roaches.
James
www.blaberus.com


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## galeogirl (May 18, 2005)

I never had a problem getting my geckos to eat N. cinerea roaches when I was still keeping herps.  I couldn't get most of my adult ts to take them, but they were great feeders for my slings and scorps.


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## Cirith Ungol (May 18, 2005)

Raqua said:
			
		

> Well, I'm pretty sure, crix are easier to breed ...
> And their life cycle is VERY short compared to roaches which makes me being able to control the production depending on my needs ... right now I'm expecting an eggsac to hatch, so I already have tons of pinheads ready. They will be in the right size when the sac hatches. You can't do this with roaches because of the log cycle.


B. dubia give birth to live young in room humidity. Crix can't beat that in a million years!  ;P


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## Dark Raptor (May 18, 2005)

...and Nauphoeta cinerea, when you've got enough of them in different stages, gives you "non-stop food" in almost any size. You don't need to check humidity, they are very resistant to mould and some diseases. They are less canibalistic.
In one thing crixs are better, newly hatched insects are so small that they are good food source for L1/L2 spiderlings.


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## Andy (May 18, 2005)

james said:
			
		

> What kind of geckos? I feed all my geckos Blaptica dubia and for the one or two really picky one they love Blatta lateralis. I've pretty much found that any insect eating animal loves roaches.
> James
> www.blaberus.com


Leopard geckos


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## Raqua (May 19, 2005)

Cirith Ungol said:
			
		

> B. dubia give birth to live young in room humidity. Crix can't beat that in a million years!  ;P


I keep crix bone dry, without substrate (in my room sometimes 20-30% Rh), except a cup of substrate for eggs, which is moist. No mold, no mites - no problem. And the main reason for me to keep them is the speed of their reproduction. Canibalism is reduced to minimum if they have enough food, hides and especially proteins in food. I give them powder milk and have no significant canibalism.
The only thing that I consider better on roaches is their size. Great feeders for adult spiders. But I'm a bit lazy and don't have room for another feeder colony, so I stick with crix for now.


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## Cirith Ungol (May 19, 2005)

Nice. Crix seems to work for you. Wouldn't for me. I hate those bastards. Eventho it takes a little longer to get a working dubia colony I prefer it 1000 times before crix. 

I don't have to care about them at all as long as I toss in some more food every 2 days. There's no cannibalism at all (ok, if I starve them there might be ofcourse), I don't need an egg laying section either. 

So I win!   




(Just teasing   )


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## Raqua (May 19, 2005)

Well, If you had like 100 small slings and 200-300 on the way, then I wonder whether you would feel like winner with your colony .....      ;P   ;P   ;P


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## xelda (May 19, 2005)

One of my buddies who lives down the street maintains a large collection of reptiles, over 100 species, so we've been testing roaches on them.  The only animals that seemed to have any problem were the dwarf monitors because the flat shape of the roaches was too awkward for their mouths.


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## Cirith Ungol (May 19, 2005)

Raqua said:
			
		

> Well, If you had like 100 small slings and 200-300 on the way, then I wonder whether you would feel like winner with your colony .....      ;P   ;P   ;P


Havings slings or not doesn't have anything to do with wether dubias or crix are more easy to raise


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## Dark Raptor (May 20, 2005)

Ok., Ok., we don't need any arguement   

I keep crixs (now 3 species), roaches (4 species), superworms, mealworms and other 'stuff', so I see (and use) every good and bad side of every feeder I have.


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## Raqua (May 20, 2005)

Cirith Ungol said:
			
		

> Havings slings or not doesn't have anything to do with wether dubias or crix are more easy to raise


It has If you raise them as feeders ...  ;P


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## Cirith Ungol (May 20, 2005)

Raqua said:
			
		

> It has If you raise them as feeders ...  ;P



I give up! Crix are best!





...unless you raise B. dubia ofcourse!  

But in order not to clutter up this thread with too much silly talk I'll agree on that it sure must be handy having those baby crickets for slings!

I'll get one or two slings soon and will start off trying to feed them pre-killed and cut in half roaches. I'm gonna use a very small container and that way the sling will hopefully find the dead roach very soon and start sucking.

However practical it might be, I'll never raise crickets ever! If one day I'm in great need for slingfood I'll raise wingless fruitflies instead. That way I cut down the entire production chain and just get what I'm asking for: tiny prey that doesn't involve stinking, cannibalistic, too-whitty-for-spiders, crazy, jumping cricket buggers.


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## Raqua (May 20, 2005)

I think fruit flies are too small for T's. Of course you can feed them 100 to one spider, but I somehow dislike that idea ... I feed those crix when they are aprox. 0.5cm. That seems to work best for me. 

Anyway, I have friend here, who has a lot of dartfrogs and other small frogs. He feeds those with regular flies. Since I keep only arboreal T's they're great feeders for my slings. Right now I have like 50 slings P. fasciata. I keep them in one tank together. Imagine that mayhem, when I drop 100 flies in .... Crazyness! Great fun to watch too ... Every sling munching 2-3 flies at once, jumping around to catch them ... For arboreals they work much better than crix. And the costs are none - my friends give them to me for free, because he has thousands of them for aprox. 30 cents ... 
The only problem is, that they smell wery bad. They live on milk and rotting meat ... No chance to raise them for me. My friend has special air conditioning system to keep the smell out.


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## Randolph XX() (May 21, 2005)

Dark Raptor said:
			
		

> Ok., Ok., we don't need any arguement
> 
> I keep crixs (now 3 species), roaches (4 species), superworms, mealworms and other 'stuff', so I see (and use) every good and bad side of every feeder I have.


Can you state bothe the good side and bad side, i'd be very appeciate,
in terms of ,ovement preferences of ts, nutritient value, difficulty for ts to catch, efficientcy to culture, and mantinence of the feeders colonies, and price?
i can't think of anything  except crix after combined every aspect together
sometimes Roaches are too flat , and their movements don't atract Ts much IME, my lobsters even escaped through the widow's web by their paper-thin body.
i've think of some larger moth sps, locusts, katydids, morman crix, mice, racts, or even baby guniea pigs


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## Andy (May 21, 2005)

So is it worth seeing if my leopard geckos will eat roaches?


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## Cirith Ungol (May 21, 2005)

Andy said:
			
		

> So is it worth seeing if my leopard geckos will eat roaches?


I'd say, buy some and see what happens. Don't forget to try B. dubias


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## Andy (May 23, 2005)

My mum and dad wont let me have roaches.


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## Dark Raptor (May 23, 2005)

Randolph XX() said:
			
		

> Can you state bothe the good side and bad side, i'd be very appeciate,
> in terms of ,ovement preferences of ts, nutritient value, difficulty for ts to catch, efficientcy to culture, and mantinence of the feeders colonies, and price?
> i can't think of anything  except crix after combined every aspect together
> sometimes Roaches are too flat , and their movements don't atract Ts much IME, my lobsters even escaped through the widow's web by their paper-thin body.
> i've think of some larger moth sps, locusts, katydids, morman crix, mice, racts, or even baby guniea pigs


With my language skills, it will be difficult   

I can't tell you anything about all feeder's nutrient value    Maybe that all beetle larvae have more lipids than other invertebrates.

I've found roaches (B. giganteus, B. dubia and N. cinerea) the best food source for medium-sized and large T's. Generally they are prefered by underground and ground spiders. I don't need to say anything how easy is breeding roaches... I started with 20 adult N. cinerea. After a few weeks I had almost 1000 specimens. Larger species breed slower, but if you have a lot of them... you don't need to worry about that. Also, very important thing, I've never had any problem with diseases. All species (except P. nivea) are very resistant to dry environment, mould and lack of food.
Sometimes it is good to smash or cut roache's head. They won't burrow and also will atract more attention to T's (for egz. when moving without coordination). The bad side... N. cinerea has 'chemical defense' and some T's don't eat them (but my spiders never refused eating them    )
B. dubia, Blaberus spp. aren't glass climbers, they shouldn't escape... N. cinerea and other... yes, they are masters in escaping. I'm lucky because I live in country with 'cold' climate  ... I've never had any problem with roaches breeding outside tanks.

Crix, especially newly hatched larvae, are the best for spiderlings. My arboreal spiders prefer this type of food, because crix are more active (and easier to catch). Sometimes crix can turn into predators, I had one accident with B. albopilosum (I've never had any problem with roaches).
Mealworms and superworms are also good for smaller spiders. I give them only to small or medium-sized T's. Of course, sometimes they can be also dangerous to spiders.

If we are talking about the costs... I use only one heating cable (25W) to heat tanks with my crix. I keep tanks with roaches in upper part of my room (warmer air) or close to tanks with crickets, so It is much cheaper. I use food from my cottage, so I don't spend money on that I'm sure it is 'clean' from chemicals. At least, I sell all 'overproduction', so I earn more money on feeders than I spend on them  ;P 

...and the truth is that I give my spiders different types of food... I believe it is good way to keep them healthy.


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## Dark Raptor (May 31, 2005)

I've just found some info about nutrient value of Tenebrio molitor larvae:

"Tenebrio molitor larvae; 2.99 kcal/g, containing ~55% water, and 30% fat, 60% protein, 10% carbohydrate by dry weight"

Source: http://ajpregu.physiology.org/cgi/content/full/286/4/R734

I will try to find more about other feeders


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## Dark Raptor (Jun 2, 2005)

Ok. I hope this link will be very nice   

http://nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf


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## JohnxII (Jun 7, 2005)

Dark Raptor said:
			
		

> Ok. I hope this link will be very nice
> 
> http://nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf


Great link, thanks!


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