Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was interested in perhaps getting roaches for leos since they seem to be more interesting than mealworms and decently easy to breed from what I have read.

If anyone has any suggestions on roaches that can be fed to young leopard geckos and don't climb I would appreciate it (if there are any)

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAD idea!!! dont do it, cuz leos need soft food. especially young uns. They will choke to death, and if they do get it down, itll impact them, or eat out their innards since leos cant chew. just stick to crickets, occasional mealies, and occasionally pinkies.

mad. hissers would be bad do to their hard exoskeleton and spiney legs.

A good roach species for a leopard gecko are orange head roaches. they're right around cricket size when nymphs.
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Israel

Ok just what in the heck are you talking about? I feed roaches to my leopards and they love them. Granted hissers are too big for leopards but if you use lobster roaches, they are fine.

Now for the chewing through the stomach thing....not going to happen. If you have ever paid attention to your leos they squish and crunch food, DEAD before they swallow it.

The choking thing.....you need to feed appropriatly sized food no matter what kind it is. The correct size roach is not going to choke your leo anymore than the correct size cricket would.

Impaction......no more chance of that than with mealies or crix..both of which have lots of chitin in the exoskeleton too.

I have found that most roaches (depending on the species) are usually softer/easier to chew than crickets of the exact same size. Hissers being the softest that I have found actually! (remember, I am comparing roaches of the same size) I raise a few different species of roach.

Only larger roaches, that would not be appropriate to use for feed, are that hard to chew.

Rodney

Roaches are good and you can keep a good supply unlike crickets and worms, which is what im going through. Im looking for orange heads they seem to be the best because they dont get a large as other non climbers. I have bred crickets they are noisy, smelly and die off. Mealworms, superwomes too long to get enough going

How big do they get? any place to order?

I have a picky eater, won't touch mealworms and doesn't eat many crix, so thought I might try something else

Here is a care sheet on orange heads.

Orange head care

I got my orange heads from Mulberry Farms

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Cody Castellanos
Pro Geckos
cody@progeckos.com

A roaches shell is no harder than a mealworms if even that hard, and mealworms are a staple food for geckos. I breed seven species of roaches and feed them to my knobtails all the time. There arn't any non-climbers that are small as adults, but the Blaptica dubia(orange spotted) or Eublaberus prosticus (orange heads) are some of the best. I usually feed them to my geckos when they are about the size of 4-6 week old crickets, but the larger knobtails can even eat larger ones. Roaches take some time to get your colony going, but they do not stink like crickets and are very easy to breed and keep.
James

I would also just like to add that its ok to feed small hissers to leo's.

-PXFL-