B. Dubia Diet

[KennyGee]

Whats best to feed them? i have some rolled corn, oat seeds, oat bran,alfafa hay, timothy hay and some other odds and ends, but i do have oak trees around here. should i be feeding some kinda of leaves off trees too?

 

[Scarp172]

I've wondered what the best balanced nutritional diet for them is as well, at least for use as feeders for inverts. I feed mine: banannas, apples, oranges, carrots, sweet potatoes, pears, cornmeal, small amounts of bread crumbs, as well as a protein mix I got from blaberus.com and the occasional bit of leftover cricket feed I have (since I don't have nasty crickets to worry about anymore! They seem to love the stuff anyway) . I've noticed they go nuts for banannas, oranges, and carrots- they rarely last a day, while the other foods stay for a while. They also get plenty of water crystals.
Anybody out there have any input, advice, or other food items we haven't tried?

 

[Halgeir]

I give mine some cucumber once in a while. Since it got alot of water in it, making sure they get enough of that too

 

[the_frog_kid]

well i use my protien diet since it has all they need in it nutritionaly
i sell it but i dont think anyone would wonna ship it
it weighs a fair bit
i also use my weird watering crystals for all my specie
i dont agree with the other type since you are eeding them plastic
i dont know exactly how my type are made but they get eated alot faster in my study groups




thanx froggy

 

[Takumaku]

My diet for all my feeder roaches:

STANDARD BLEND
5 parts Layena unmedicated chick mash (feed store)
2 parts honey nut toasted oats (grocery store)
1 part mixed baby cereal (grocery store)
1 part calcium fortified corn flakes (grocery store)
1 part tropical fish flake containing spirulina (pet store)

 

[the_frog_kid]

most tropical fish flakes are not good for roaches so i suggest you take that out in the next batch
it has phosphorus in it
and believe it or not that killed the un killable lobster colonie i had with over 10000 members in it lol




thanx froggy

 

[Halgeir]

Since I only feed them fruit, veggies and cat food. Anything I'm missing?

 

[Juraki]

I also used cat food for a while, I read that the protein content was too high and switched to dog food. I was sceptical at first, thinking that the reason I was finding roaches with thier wings eaten off was due to a diet too low in protein. What I ended up finding later was that the wing biting was due to overcrowding and had nothing to do with diet. This was with N.cinerea (lobster roaches) but I decided to use dog food as the staple with my B.dubia as well. The deaths in the lobster colony have slowed way down and I'm only finding dead adults and not large nymphs like before.

I have also read that both species will abort thier oothecae if they have too much protein. I noticed that very problem with the lobsters, it too has stopped now that I have reduced the protein content of my mix. The exact ingredients vary from to time but it's always 1/2 to 3/4 canidae (any brand works but I go for quality and it's what my dogs get anyways) dry dog food, and the rest is usually things like, oats, bird seed, bran flakes, corn flakes, whole grain cereals ect. It's all ground in an electric coffee grinder to a fine powder, effectively I'm cutting down the protein even more by using grain based food items to "cut" the dog food, I also vary it greatly to prevent too much of certain things building up in thier systems.

As for moisture, I include the usual fruits and veggies, or occassional water crystals. I have read that feeding b.dubia fruit helps get them breeding, and since I always have I can't comment on that for sure.

 

[Halgeir]

I thought of dog food, but a friend of mine experienced that there were insect eggs in the dog food. Don't know if this is a common thing, so I might try with my dogs food to the dubias.