Feeder Roaches

[syndicate]

ive been thinking about starting up a roach colony for feeders.these B. lateralis look great.cheap to.
i was kinda iffy about the idea of keeping roaches in my house.wouldnt want any to get loose lol.but it would be real nice to not have to buy crickets or smell crickets or hear crickets chirping all night lol!

 

[Parahybana3590]

with roaches, since they're communal, if one gets out of the tank it will die.

 

[Code Monkey]

with roaches, since they're communal, if one gets out of the tank it will die.

Um, no.

If one gets out of the tank it will probably die eventually, but that's because with the exception of about 7 species in the world, all the other roach species are unable to do more than hang on to life in most home environments.

 

[cacoseraph]

here is a write up i did on the roaches i use as feeders. there is some other info in there too

Invertebrate Feeders (Bugs on a Budget):
http://venomlist.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7689

 

[Rounder]

with roaches, since they're communal, if one gets out of the tank it will die.

Yeah tell that to a B. discoid that somehow got out of it's rubbermade bin and lived in my garage all winter, we found it while cleaning out the garage this spring. My wife screamed and said "something huge is moving in that bag!" LOL I had to laugh, especially when it was just a discoid.

Looking back, I probably dropped the discoid on the floor of the garage last October/September and didn't realize it. It was in very good shape though, amazingly enough.

 

[Rounder]

It's also alot less taxing on a colony to feed the 7" T.Blondi 1-2 large prey items than 7-10 small ones...but then again, if you've got a crap load of little roaches, maybe it aint so bad .

This is a good point. With lobsters I don't think it will matter, they've reproduced at an insane rate this summer, they are eating me out of house and home.

I currently don't have any discoids, but I might go back to them and use them as feeders for my larger Ts and keep my lobsters for feeding to the smaller Ts. The adult lobsters make a great feeder for Ts in the 2.5" to 4" range, it's just a nice sized meal for them. The shell on lobsters seems very thin too.

I picked up 250 lobsters for $20 about 2 months ago. I'd guess that 250 is now 400-500 and I've been feeding off them almost exclusively the past month. I have about 50 critters to feed.

 

[jw73]

I recommend B. dubia. They young are good for spiderlings. They are accepted for almost every Ts I have. Only my D. fasciatus don't like them.