My Discoids

[James M.]

I recently moved them from the beadroom, witch was aroud 75 - 79 F, to the utility closet witch is warm enuff when you open the door you can feel the warmth rush out, and it is dark always. That maid a huge difrense in thier behavior, for the better. Thay are so much more active now. I can not help but ask why are thay not eating anay of the dog food I have been feding them? The letuce is usualy gone within 24 hours but thay have never tuched the dog food. I can not realy tell if thay are eating the grain stuff I am feeding them. I hope the changing them to the warmer darker place helps to get them breading it up.

 

[pelo]

Give them more than just lettuce.I don't give any lettuce at all..they like apples,carrots,broccolli,bananas.Lettuce offers them nothing but moisture.The dog food...make sure it's ground up.I put mine in the blender and grind to a powder.I also add some cricket food,fish food and kibbled parrot food.Not only are temps(high temps-85-90 dgrs) an aid to breeding roaches but a varied nutricious diet helps also.It's also good for your spiders.Getting a roach gutloaded and fat from a good diet is beneficial....peace..

 

[James M.]

I am not just feeding them letuce. I was just stating that it was what thay wher eating most as of then. I also have a dish with Botars cricket and roach food with the whole peaces of dog food. I will try grinding the dog food as you mentioned. I put a wedge of orange in the tub yesterday and it is gone, gess I fond something thay realy like, or is it just giveing them water as well?

 

[Code Monkey]

It's not necessary to grind up the dog food. Roaches that size can chew through plastic and drywall, a little dogfood isn't going to phase them. As for their apparent disinterest, if you are giving them sufficient vegetable matter then they won't touch it as much as they would fed it as their only choice - as I've pointed out and poo-pooed by certain people, roaches do not choose to eat high protein foods when given a choice. My roaches eat dog food because 25 days out of the month that's all they get. When something goes bad for human use, though, here comes a vegetable matter feast for the bugs and they go crazy. For instance, I tossed a few overripe bananas in there about an hour a go, peel and all. They're down to about 1/4 of their original size already.

 

[skinheaddave]

Chip,

This is actually the phenomenon that is taking me from breeding roaches soely as a food source to roach lover. They are like pihranas when you put in veggie matter. I love throwing in an apple in the dark and just listening to them swarm. Then you turn on the light and the thing is just covered with roaches of all sizes. Very impressive.

Cheers,
Dave

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

Try getting a decent-size orange head culture going. It'll make you feel all gooey inside when you throw in a huge sickly bug, mismolt or something slow and they all come running to eat it. The victim will hopelessly flails its arms trying to escape but not understanding that its digestive system, heart, genitals and more has already been consumed by the orange heads.

 

[Buspirone]

Orange Heads sure can clean up a chicken bone.

 

[James M.]

That makes sence. I do not think that all thay get out of letuce is moisture becouse that is all thay realy ate for a few weeks. I not saying thats all I fed them, thay had the Botar blend and banana. Of corse all I have is two dozen but a whole four in. size dish of letuce would be gone in 24 hours. I beleve thay are eating the Botar stuff to becouse I see the stuff all over the botom of the tub. The banana however was barly tuched, it was in thare without anay other frut or vegitables.

I digress, I was wandering about the dog and I continue feeding them the fruts and vegitables becouse thare is always plenty in this house. I am keeping only four peaces of dog food in thare to see if it is geting munched on or not.

I thank everyone for the help.

 

[Wade]

Originally posted by MantidAssassins
Try getting a decent-size orange head culture going. It'll make you feel all gooey inside when you throw in a huge sickly bug, mismolt or something slow and they all come running to eat it. The victim will hopelessly flails its arms trying to escape but not understanding that its digestive system, heart, genitals and more has already been consumed by the orange heads.

They will also tear into some frozen/thawed pinkies. Not that I get pinkies for them specifically, but sometimes I have leftovers from snakes. Of the four species I keep, this is the only one that seems to actually prefer high protien foods. They will consume dry dog or cat food over the chick mash any day. I suspect that this tendency makes them a little more risky to use as feeders for predatory inverts, as they may be more likley to turn the tables on your pets! E. prosticus is the prime suspect in a P. murinus death at my house last year.

All the others (and crickets too) get unmedicated chick mash from the feed store as an almost exclusive diet. Ocasionally, I'll toss in wilted/overripe produce, but that's so rare I doubt it makes much of a difference. Chick mash is incredibly cheap, like $8 for a 40 pound bag (I go through it faster than you'd think!). My roaches breed like crazy with no special effort from me beyond feeding and watering, especially B. discoidales.

Wade

 

[webspinner]

Hey can anybody post a pick of a B. discoid nymph because I have these little white things jumping around in their inclosure, kind of look like baby crix.

 

[Code Monkey]

Hey can anybody post a pick of a B. discoid nymph because I have these little white things jumping around in their inclosure, kind of look like baby crix.

Then they probably are. I assure you, roach nymphs do not jump. Of courese, if you've never had crickets in the tank, that would make collemboid insects the next most likely suspect (they're harmless scavengers).

 

[webspinner]

Hey CM how do u get rid of them and can they be fed to my slings?

 

[Code Monkey]

Hey CM how do u get rid of them and can they be fed to my slings?

Your only option is to dry everything out completely but I really see no need. My roach bins double as sawtoothed grain beetle bins. They're scavengers, pose no danger, and would be an enormous pain to try and eradicate.

But, on the bright side, if you can figure out how to catch them, sprintails (the common name for collemboids) are fine as feeders. Many people who raise dart frogs encourage cultures of the insects in their terrariums.

 

[Mendi]

Just a note feed them sliced citrus fruit as well... Not only they get free "water" from them, it comes packed with vitamines to make breeding faster.

and somewhere on one of the roach forums is a recipe for carrot slaw that mine have gone crazy over... Might be the old still forum over at Kingsnake.com. If you feed enough juicy vegatables. you ne longer need to wory about keeping a fresh supply of water in with them