Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just curious if any of you guys have tried growing roaches as food. Seems like it might offer me a cheaper alternative to crickets, as well as variety, something nice and large that might be more exciting than crickets, etc.

Also a random and totally unrelated question: any of you ever get CB male Crotaphytus to develop the nice big heads that they get in the wild in many areas? Just curious, since in New Mexico the difference in head size between wild and CB males is pretty striking; I assume it's a plastic response related to whether or not they encounter other males, but don't really know.

Patrick Alexander

I have fed mine roaches from wood piles, but no way in @##@ my wife would let me grow them :O) I know some people that breed lobster roaches. Supposedly they don't have the odor of crickets, and the colonies are easy to maintain, as they eat most anything like crickets.

I've never noticed head size differences between cb and wc lizards. Definately color differences, but nothing with head size.

"I have fed mine roaches from wood piles, but no way in @##@ my wife would let me grow them :O) I know some people that breed lobster roaches. Supposedly they don't have the odor of crickets, and the colonies are easy to maintain, as they eat most anything like crickets."

Cool. Good to know they'll eat roaches, anyways. Do they seem any more or less fond of roaches than of crickets, that you know of?

"I've never noticed head size differences between cb and wc lizards. Definately color differences, but nothing with head size."

Interesting. What areas have you dealt with CB lizards from? I can imagine there wouldn't be much difference between CB and WC lizards in places like Utah and Oklahoma where there isn't much sexual dimorphism in head size to begin with. OTOH, it's pretty obvious in the New Mexican lizards, which are the only ones I've had any experience with as CB critters. I've got a couple of pictures of WC lizards that should at least give you a general idea what I'm talking about... here's a typical adult male, east of Las Cruces:

Here's a subadult male, same location:

The CB male New Mexican lizards I have (which I can get pictures of, if you want), now 3 years old, still have the head size and shape of a typical subadult male or female. The few other CB Crotaphytus collaris fuscus I've seen are the same, the males just don't progress beyond subadult morphology in terms of head size and shape.

Patrick Alexander

I tried lobster roaches. My collards were ok with them, they were too big for my anoles, and the tarantula woulnd't touch them.

They are harder to handle than crickets and I dropped them a lot. The last straw was when I found one under my dog's crate that I had either dropped or had escaped. The last thing I need is a colony of those things setting up shop in my walls!

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1.0 Common Snapping Turtle (Goliath)
1.0 Brown Anole (Anubis)
1.0 Green Anole (Baal)
1.1 Great Basin Collared Lizards (Amon, Amaunette)
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula (Spiega)
1.0 Chesapeake Bay Retriever (Logan)
0.1 Spoiled Mutt (Storm)

"I tried lobster roaches. My collards were ok with them, they were too big for my anoles, and the tarantula woulnd't touch them.

They are harder to handle than crickets and I dropped them a lot."

Yeah, I'm thinking I might try to find a non-glass-climbing species to use, like death's head roaches. Apparently those are less palatable than lobster roaches, though... given that the wild collared lizards in the Las Cruces area are apparently entirely willing to subsist on things like cicadas, though, they might not mind.

"The last straw was when I found one under my dog's crate that I had either dropped or had escaped. The last thing I need is a colony of those things setting up shop in my walls!"

Well, Las Cruces is already roach heaven, so personally I'm not too worried about that. Seems like the worst I'd do is increase the diversity of the local roach populations.

Patrick Alexander