Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I'm trying to convince my girlfriend that roaches would be the best new feeder for us to give to our breeding colony of leopard geckos, but the fact that they are easy to breed, non-climbing/flying/jumping, odorless, noiseless, have a high meat-to-shell ratio, and don't reqiure special food/housing isn't enough for her. I need to find nutritional information to really drive my point home (hopefully), but I can't find any information on the actual nutritional value of different roaches ANYWHERE. If anyone has seen actual values on protien/fat/calcium/phosphorous/etc. content for different species of roaches, PLEASE let me know. I'm dying to start a new feeder project to supplement our Leopards! They're like my little children and dads always want to provide the best food for their kids

It's a link to a link but you'll find numerical data from this thread:
http://www.bidabug.org/Forum/index.php?showtopic=824&hl=nutrition
Allpet Roaches Forum

Umm...yeah, that analysis is wonderful at first glance...but did you do the math on those percentages?

They range from about 78% to 102%...how can you have enough stuff to make up more than 100% of an object?

It makes me wonder how accurate those numbers really are.

Moisture, protein, fat, fibre and ash are not ingredients or components that physically make up the insect, it is what the parts of the insect contain. Take a dog food label for example. In the ingredients which make up 100% of the product, you will not read "Protein, fat, fibre..." and so on. You will read the physical ingredients that goes into making the product. The nutritional analysis is to tell you how much of what essential nutrient your pet is getting from said ingredients.

Read any dog food lable and I highly doubt thier percentages add up to 100 because that is not how you read nutritional analyses. You don't add them together. You need to know what percentage of what nutrient your animal needs, such as protein, fat, fiber, ash...to fully give your animals what they need.

In your case, total ingredients would be crickets or hissers.

For example, by that analysis in the link, provided by Orin, Hissing Cockroaches have more protein, fiber, and ash than crickets, while crickets contain more fat and moisture. Just compare the other species of feeder insect to crickets to find which one would be best suited for your lizard. Then it is only a matter of whether or not your pet will consume them.

All the best!
-AMW