Feeding Cost

Tiger181

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
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0
Hello again everybody!

So I know i've made two other threads recently, but I have one final question. Do you have a roach colony, or do you buy them every time you need more? I ask because I have yet to buy my first T, but I was looking at the price of the Dubia and Lateralis roaches on Jamie's Tarantulas, and with $12 + shipping for every 25 roaches, the cost would soon add up. The thing is, I don't really want to have a colony because I've heard many stories about how it can be overwhelming if you only have one T, and how there can be an odor. On the other hand, I'm on a sort of "budget" and upwards of $12 for every 25 roaches can be quite a lot in the end. Thanks for taking the time to read this everyone!
 

scorpanok

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
168
do you plan on expending your collection soon after you get your first T if so I would buy maybe 3-5 female dubias and a few males so it should be a wile before the colony gets out of hand. when I got my first two T's my beautiful male and female p.metallica's I knew I would be expanding my collection and since I also had about 7 scorpions I thought I may as well start a colony now. I started with about 13 or so females and 5 males and my colony stayed at a reasonable size for about 10 or so months then I got a bit of a population boom and gave the extra to some family members that had lizards and I even cooked some up for myself as for taste its kind of like crawfish and there really good with garlic butter. Another way to keep the population down is to keep the temps on the lower end
 

Tiger181

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
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do you plan on expending your collection soon after you get your first T if so I would buy maybe 3-5 female dubias and a few males so it should be a wile before the colony gets out of hand. when I got my first two T's my beautiful male and female p.metallica's I knew I would be expanding my collection and since I also had about 7 scorpions I thought I may as well start a colony now. I started with about 13 or so females and 5 males and my colony stayed at a reasonable size for about 10 or so months then I got a bit of a population boom and gave the extra to some family members that had lizards and I even cooked some up for myself as for taste its kind of like crawfish and there really good with garlic butter. Another way to keep the population down is to keep the temps on the lower end
I don't really plan on expanding my collection at least for a while. I'm still a little iffy on the colony thing though. It just seems harder to upkeep than the actual tarantula itself, haha
 

scorpanok

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
168
a small colony of dubias is not all that hard to keep the trick is to working it into your routine you could just go with a critter keeper with some egg crate and put some veggies in when they need to be fed. I use my fairly large colony as a way to dispose of leftover vegetable matter such as the bottoms of lettuce and celery and when I clean the colony I use the fras and molts as fertilizer for my plants or throw it into my compost pile.
 

Rittdk01

Arachnoknight
Joined
Oct 4, 2016
Messages
258
I buy 50 Dubia off eBay for $12 shipped. Crickets are $1 a dozen. I now have 9 plus five slings to feed and water. You don't need a colony for one tarantula, unless it's a theraphosa lol. I have two Rosies, two pink toes, an lp, a small ghost pokie, an a seemanni zebra and two stirmi. The slings get small crickets that are a buck a dozen. Stirmis and lp eat roaches. Go through 9 a week or so between them. The little stirmi is an amazing eater. The others get a dozen large, which are also a buck. So, under $5 a week for food. And that's with two of the t worlds biggest eaters ( The lp is right there too).
 

scorpanok

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
168
I really need to get a stirmi I have put it of for long enough and you are right you don't really need to have a colony for 1 T.
 

Chris LXXIX

ArachnoGod
Joined
Dec 25, 2014
Messages
5,845
Here in Italy I buy only crickets from other breeders on their online shops. Thank God, here LPS or things like Petco etc doesn't exists, and the few we have do not sell or deal with inverts. Parrots and stuff like that, mostly :-s

Here our private courier prices are amazing (and IMO a reason why FedEx, while present, isn't at the first place) and with less than $7 I receive the parcel within 36 hours, crickets are very cheap, so I prefer to buy those instead of breeding myself those quite smelly, filthy and singing lovely dastards :)

Same (cheap price, I mean) for the roaches with a difference: I breed those (B.dubia only).
 

Trenor

Arachnoprince
Joined
Jan 28, 2016
Messages
1,896
Unless you have a lot of Ts or something else that eats Dubia roaches I wouldn't recommend setting up a colony. For the cost of a starter colony you can buy a lot of feeders. I'd just buy what you need.

I got 200 small Dubia for cheap online before I started my own colony for my BD. Shipping is usually a lot cheaper than shipping more expensive Ts and other non feeder animals.
 

sdsnybny

Arachnogeek
Joined
Apr 29, 2015
Messages
1,330
search your local Craigslist there is always an add or two local to me selling dubias in made to order quantities. Makes it easy to keep 50-100 in a large Kritter Keeper and replenish them when you get low
 

Redneck

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
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Aug 1, 2009
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1,393
I even cooked some up for myself as for taste its kind of like crawfish and there really good with garlic butter.
No one else has pointed this out. Curious, how did you cook them up? Are they juicy? Do you just eat males or female or both? Juvenile or adult?
 

scorpanok

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
168
when my population was out of control I just grabbed a hand full of adults and medium to large nymphs put them in a critter keeper with some bell peppers to get them nice and plump and most of the time boil or fry them. actually at first some said they would give me five bucks if I ate one so I did and I realized they don't taste bad at all so every now and then I cook up a handful as for if there juicy it depends on how you cook them
 

Redneck

Arachnoprince
Old Timer
Joined
Aug 1, 2009
Messages
1,393
when my population was out of control I just grabbed a hand full of adults and medium to large nymphs put them in a critter keeper with some bell peppers to get them nice and plump and most of the time boil or fry them. actually at first some said they would give me five bucks if I ate one so I did and I realized they don't taste bad at all so every now and then I cook up a handful as for if there juicy it depends on how you cook them
Deep fried dubia! Lol. I don't know if I could try them. Maybe if I knew how to prep them I might could. Feed them peppers to fatten them up. Throw them in some battered eggs and let them roll around in some flour and drop them in the deep fryer. Get them nice and crisp. Lol
 

scorpanok

Arachnoknight
Joined
Feb 9, 2016
Messages
168
Deep fried dubia! Lol. I don't know if I could try them. Maybe if I knew how to prep them I might could. Feed them peppers to fatten them up. Throw them in some battered eggs and let them roll around in some flour and drop them in the deep fryer. Get them nice and crisp. Lol
mmmm now you making me hungry I'm going to have to go to the store tomorrow to pickup some ingredients.
 

Tiger181

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
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0
Thanks for the responses everyone! I think for now I'll just purchase dubia when I run out of them, and if my collection gets large I may consider a colony.

EDIT: Where do you purchase your roaches? Is rainbowmealworms a good site?
 
Last edited:

hennibbale

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
80
No one else has pointed this out. Curious, how did you cook them up? Are they juicy? Do you just eat males or female or both? Juvenile or adult?
I cooked them by:
Removing all legs and antennas, boiled them for 2 minutes (to kill the parasites) and then baked them for 2 hours in the oven.

They taste like crawlfish!
 

Andrea82

Arachnoemperor
Joined
Jan 12, 2016
Messages
3,686
@OP;
You could try ordering mealworms and superworms as feeders instead of roaches. I bought some supers two months ago, and they're still alive. Mealworms stay good for a long time too. All you need is bran flakes as substrate, and add veggies and fruit for moisture. I started using crickets, foul smelling beasts, then roaches, but not all my T's take them, then locusts, but they are more expensive, and now supers and mealies. Only two of my spiders don't like them, so they get a locust, but the rest takes them readily :)
 

Rittdk01

Arachnoknight
Joined
Oct 4, 2016
Messages
258
Thanks for the responses everyone! I think for now I'll just purchase dubia when I run out of them, and if my collection gets large I may consider a colony.

EDIT: Where do you purchase your roaches? Is rainbowmealworms a good site?
Rainbow mealworms is where I buy them from. they sell on ebay. $12 for 50 can't beat that
 

truecreature

Arachnoknight
Joined
Oct 24, 2014
Messages
206
If you're on a small budget, why not just buy crickets from a LPS? I have 30-some tarantulas and a White's tree frog and it costs me less than $5 a week in crickets, with a very decent amount left over for the following week even with the die-offs. It'd be even cheaper if I ordered in bulk online but I'm too lazy to bother maintaining them in that volume.
 

Tiger181

Arachnopeon
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
Messages
0
If you're on a small budget, why not just buy crickets from a LPS? I have 30-some tarantulas and a White's tree frog and it costs me less than $5 a week in crickets, with a very decent amount left over for the following week even with the die-offs. It'd be even cheaper if I ordered in bulk online but I'm too lazy to bother maintaining them in that volume.
I don't want to use crickets because of the chirping :/
 
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