Reptile & Amphibian Forums

There have been a lot of questions about roaches over the past several months on this forum. Here is my opinion and some of the things that have worked for me. First off, my name is James and I started breeding roaches because each frilled dragon I had would need about 30 crickets each day and my wallet was getting thin. It is important to note there are to very different types of roaches (climbers & non-climbers). Most of the popular non-climbers are of the Eublaberus and Blaberus genus. With the climbers we mainly focus on hissers and lobsters. Over the past two years I have tried numerous substrates including; bran, oats, chicken scratch, sphagnum moss, alfalfa pellets, shavings, and probably a few more. At the end of the day I found it best to use nothing. I keep all my roaches in rubbermaid containers with eggs carton only. www.eggcartons.com This makes it much easier to clean and pick out young nymphs good for feeding. If I was forced to use a bedding than a thin layer of sphagnum moss worked best for me. It can easily get wet and not cause problem. The other substrates can become moldy, smelly, and even bring in mites. I personally prefer to keep my roaches in a rack system. I found the best solution was a sheet of plywood cut into four, one sheet of laminated pegboard cut into fours, and some 2"x4"s. Quickly I had a four shelf very ventilated rack system. Flex-watt or heat rope and I was good to go. Otherwise some type of container with bottom heat works best. Roaches do really well with 90F temps. Next was food and water. Oranges, apples, carrots, and other fruits and veggies are all good for roaches. By feeding them this once or twice a week they get most of the water they need. Most people use a dry cat or dog food for a protein source. I use a small cat food along with fish flakes, oats, and whatever else I have, then grind it down with a coffee bean grinder into the perfect food. So then spraying water with a dry food isn't good. so the next thing was to find the source to the water crystals. www.watersorb.com It still amazes me how bad people get ripped off buying these things retail. I guess I'm just a little to honest and need to point people to the source instead of selling them. So now no more messy water dish to deal with and your cage set-up is ready to go. So now you have to choose which roach or roaches you want to work with. Most people jump into hissers or lobsters because they are the cheapest of the roaches. Lobsters are probably one of the most common feeder roaches. These guys breed very very fast and hundreds will become thousands in no time. Now the bad part, they are very fast and will escape if not keep with the utmost care. Although easy to contain with vaseline or bug stop, your reptiles cage needs to be escape proof, or you need to watch each feeding well to not let any get loose. Hissers breed well and are very easy to sex, but I have found that there exoskeleton was to hard for the liking of my reptiles. As smaller nymphs they are O.K. , but the bigger they get the less useful as a feeders they become. Same issue with climbing as the lobsters, but much slower. Now on to the non-climbers. Lets start with Eublaberus prosticus or orange head roach. This is one of the better breeding non-climbers and make good feeder for aggressive lizards. These roaches tend to bury themselves quickly, so you want to feed them to active animals waiting to pounce. These roaches don't necessarily stink, but the do carry one of the stronger defense odors (really only strong when in groups), but this does not bother the animals one bit. These roaches do like a high protein diet and will eat each others wings if its not provided. Next is the Eublberus distanti or 6-spot roach. As nymphs they have six orange spots on their backs, and these guys are little tanks (one of the heaviest nymphs around). For me these are slower breeding and probably mainly suitable for bigger lizards. Next we have the Blaberus craniifer or death's head roach. This roach is illegal in a few states so be careful. They tend to be a little larger than most non-climbers (up to about 3" , but breed well. These are a fast, spastic roach that are good for attracting animals. They will run around like crazy and draw lots of attention. Next we have the Blaberus discoidales, or discoids, or false death heads. This roach is a very popular feeder. Smaller in size to the craniifer, but the nymph look similar and act about the same. None the less probably a high choice for a feeder roach. The last roach I'm going to talk about is the Blaptica dubia or orange spotted roach. Personally this is my favorite roach and my main food source. I am currently keeping seventeen knobtails and this is what they eat every night. First this is the easiest of all roaches to sex. Males have wings and females do not. Second this is a very mellow roach that will cruise on the top for a little while before digging. This roach will even fool you during cleanings by not moving at all and appearing dead. It is quite funny, but once they feel fine up and off they go. They are also good breeders and easy to maintain. Even though I have had roaches for a few years and have several species I am not close to an expert. These are all my observation and opinions. If you want fast and cheap go with the lobsters and hisser, but expect more headaches. If you want slow and steady choose a non climber, be patient, and you can produce hundreds of nice fat healthy roaches for your pets. Remember that you can feed roaches at 1/8"-2 " and one roach will usually equal multiple crickets in food value. My geckos are very fat and healthy, and when I kept frilleds they only needed a couple roaches verses 30 crickets and they each laid multiple clutches while staying fat and happy. Good luck and good roaching.
James

>>There have been a lot of questions about roaches over the past several months on this forum. Here is my opinion and some of the things that have worked for me. First off, my name is James and I started breeding roaches because each frilled dragon I had would need about 30 crickets each day and my wallet was getting thin. It is important to note there are to very different types of roaches (climbers & non-climbers). Most of the popular non-climbers are of the Eublaberus and Blaberus genus. With the climbers we mainly focus on hissers and lobsters. Over the past two years I have tried numerous substrates including; bran, oats, chicken scratch, sphagnum moss, alfalfa pellets, shavings, and probably a few more. At the end of the day I found it best to use nothing. I keep all my roaches in rubbermaid containers with eggs carton only. www.eggcartons.com This makes it much easier to clean and pick out young nymphs good for feeding. If I was forced to use a bedding than a thin layer of sphagnum moss worked best for me. It can easily get wet and not cause problem. The other substrates can become moldy, smelly, and even bring in mites. I personally prefer to keep my roaches in a rack system. I found the best solution was a sheet of plywood cut into four, one sheet of laminated pegboard cut into fours, and some 2"x4"s. Quickly I had a four shelf very ventilated rack system. Flex-watt or heat rope and I was good to go. Otherwise some type of container with bottom heat works best. Roaches do really well with 90F temps. Next was food and water. Oranges, apples, carrots, and other fruits and veggies are all good for roaches. By feeding them this once or twice a week they get most of the water they need. Most people use a dry cat or dog food for a protein source. I use a small cat food along with fish flakes, oats, and whatever else I have, then grind it down with a coffee bean grinder into the perfect food. So then spraying water with a dry food isn't good. so the next thing was to find the source to the water crystals. www.watersorb.com It still amazes me how bad people get ripped off buying these things retail. I guess I'm just a little to honest and need to point people to the source instead of selling them. So now no more messy water dish to deal with and your cage set-up is ready to go. So now you have to choose which roach or roaches you want to work with. Most people jump into hissers or lobsters because they are the cheapest of the roaches. Lobsters are probably one of the most common feeder roaches. These guys breed very very fast and hundreds will become thousands in no time. Now the bad part, they are very fast and will escape if not keep with the utmost care. Although easy to contain with vaseline or bug stop, your reptiles cage needs to be escape proof, or you need to watch each feeding well to not let any get loose. Hissers breed well and are very easy to sex, but I have found that there exoskeleton was to hard for the liking of my reptiles. As smaller nymphs they are O.K. , but the bigger they get the less useful as a feeders they become. Same issue with climbing as the lobsters, but much slower. Now on to the non-climbers. Lets start with Eublaberus prosticus or orange head roach. This is one of the better breeding non-climbers and make good feeder for aggressive lizards. These roaches tend to bury themselves quickly, so you want to feed them to active animals waiting to pounce. These roaches don't necessarily stink, but the do carry one of the stronger defense odors (really only strong when in groups), but this does not bother the animals one bit. These roaches do like a high protein diet and will eat each others wings if its not provided. Next is the Eublberus distanti or 6-spot roach. As nymphs they have six orange spots on their backs, and these guys are little tanks (one of the heaviest nymphs around). For me these are slower breeding and probably mainly suitable for bigger lizards. Next we have the Blaberus craniifer or death's head roach. This roach is illegal in a few states so be careful. They tend to be a little larger than most non-climbers (up to about 3" , but breed well. These are a fast, spastic roach that are good for attracting animals. They will run around like crazy and draw lots of attention. Next we have the Blaberus discoidales, or discoids, or false death heads. This roach is a very popular feeder. Smaller in size to the craniifer, but the nymph look similar and act about the same. None the less probably a high choice for a feeder roach. The last roach I'm going to talk about is the Blaptica dubia or orange spotted roach. Personally this is my favorite roach and my main food source. I am currently keeping seventeen knobtails and this is what they eat every night. First this is the easiest of all roaches to sex. Males have wings and females do not. Second this is a very mellow roach that will cruise on the top for a little while before digging. This roach will even fool you during cleanings by not moving at all and appearing dead. It is quite funny, but once they feel fine up and off they go. They are also good breeders and easy to maintain. Even though I have had roaches for a few years and have several species I am not close to an expert. These are all my observation and opinions. If you want fast and cheap go with the lobsters and hisser, but expect more headaches. If you want slow and steady choose a non climber, be patient, and you can produce hundreds of nice fat healthy roaches for your pets. Remember that you can feed roaches at 1/8"-2 " and one roach will usually equal multiple crickets in food value. My geckos are very fat and healthy, and when I kept frilleds they only needed a couple roaches verses 30 crickets and they each laid multiple clutches while staying fat and happy. Good luck and good roaching.
>>James
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James,

Great info. on the roach species you keep.
Really love those orange heads, I got from you. Everytime I went into to my room yesterday I had to open the bin and look at them. Man, do I love the fact that they don't stink.

Still am alittle creeped out by them.

Israel

It does take a little while getting use to them. Once you start feeding them and seeing your animals response to them, you'll like them a lot more. Then for me it became about finding other species that worked for me. I think its good to have two or three to choose from. You should try to get some blaptica dubia next. They are still my favorite roach, and the easiest to sex which is a big plus. The discoids are another real good one. Let me know if you have any questions.
James

What I'm trying to do is figure out how to feed them off to my Tokays and White's Tree frog. The tokays are very shy, but they readily pound anything the runs in front of their hides but the roaches tend to find any small crack or creavice in the cage and hide so I don't know if were eaten (could resist throwing a couple in to see if they'd get eaten) and the White's I put two little nymphs in a litte plastic cup I cut down. and they were still there this moring, threw them back in the bin to grow up.

Israel

Very great info indeed! thanks for taknig the time for that write up. I am interested mostly in dubia and discoids... Where is the best place to find them, and how many adults would you need to start a fair sized colony?

thanks
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0.0.3 Whites tree frogs
0.0.1 Blizzard leopard gecko
0.0.1 Argentine Black and White tegu
0.1 Tremper leopard gecko
0.1 Het. tremper leopard gecko

Q. How many roaches do I need to start a colony.

This is a tough one to answer. Most people start with 50-100. The first thing is its very hard to buy adults, and if you do to know how old they are. So most of the time your getting nymphs that are 1-3 months old. Most of these roaches take 3-4 months to become adults. Then you have at least a month before you start getting babies. So the non-climbing roach game is all about patience. This is how I look at it. Your already buying crickets today right. It you really want to move to roaches you need to basically commit the first 7-9 months to raising your colony. I have thousands of dubia and still am not selling them yet, but I also have seventeen geckos that eat about 400-500 a month. I was stupid and have traded or sold hundreds if not thousands of these over the past year. You really have to just bite the bullet and let the colony get to the point where you producing enough babies to feed ever month. So I recommend you start with as many as you can afford and plan to be very patient. It will take a little while, but its worth the wait. Hopefully I'll get a website going soon. I am close to the point where I will be able to start selling more.
James