Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Seeing as roaches are slightly expensive, I want to make sure I make it worth it when I buy them. What kind will be best for feedig my chams, and my leos?

Duh! And before I forget, what kind will be easiest to breed, and keep a colony of said roaches going?

For fast breeding and economical roaches, I'd suggest lobster roaches. I've never tried them before myself, but I hear they breed.... well, like roaches!
Only problem with lobsters is that they climb glass. I personally don't like glass climbers, so I stick to discoids, orange heads and death's head roaches. They do take a little while to establish a nice colony, but the good news is that once you have a decent colony going, you can harvest appropriate sized nymphs at will!
Want my opinion? Start a colony just for fun. Heck, start two! They're really cheap to keep- I feed mine a staple diet of either chicken lay mash or chick starter mash, supplemented with scrap greens and vegies. When you finally get to where you can feed your own home grown roaches to your herps, you'll understand why I'm such a huge roach fan!
As for purchase price of individual roaches- think of it like buying a good quality fruit fly culture- you're paying for the starter stock. Once you have your colony firmly established, the cost of feeding per prey item will be considerably cheaper than offering even crickets.
-----
Victor Gomez
gomezvi@yahoo.com

Hey,

I have never had anything but lobsters, AND I DON'T RECCOMMEND THEM. Or any climber for that matter. They are difficult to work with, and get away easily. But, from what I hear, the non-climbers are the way to go. Cost more, but well worth it. I have heard the babtica dubia to be one of the best (expensive though). I believe their common name is orange spooted roach, but not positive. The man to ask about roaches is Digby Rigby. I am not sure if you can contact him through Kingsnake, but I know that you can go to faunaclassifieds, and find his name, and email him. He is a roach expert, and can get you any kind, for a great price. Well, thats all my roach knowledge....

Ank-Inc.
Adam.

I use and would recommend lobster roaches any day of the week. After keeping several of the common types of roaches, I've settled with lobsters for these reasons:

1. They're fast breeders. When you're trying to sustain a large colony and feed from it on a regular basis without damaging the numbers, lobsters are ideal. Keep them hot and fed, and they do the rest.

2. They're soft bodied. They digest easier than the majority of other roaches, and don't have hard spiny legs to mess up your chameleon's lips. Vet tests have proven this, as well as my own personal "human" roach tester.

3. They're cheap. If you're trying to set up a decent colony (1,000+), you need something that's at least reasonable to get yourself into.

If you think about it, the only real reason everyone's afraid of them is because they climb. That issue is easily fixed by using one of several products out there to prevent it (Bug Boundary, Bug Stop, or simple Vaseline). Once you put a roach in a screen cage, any roach is going to climb or hide as well as a lobster. If you feed lobsters without wings, they're not mature, and won't suddenly drop babies in the cage (with winged adults, you have that very slight possibility). Feeding roaches without wings is better anyways since the adults are the lifeline of your colony. Good luck in picking a species!

-----
Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com

I'm so very pleased I've gotten so many responses, but that has to be the grossest(even a word?) picture I have ever seen on kingsnake forums. Keep up the good work! (Don't worry, as I wasn't offended or anything, but that is disgusting and makes me wonder, who is the human tester on that kind of thing?)

Hi, did you feed CadBerry roaches ? I was wondering and meaning to ask you.

I have had no luck with him eating crickets. I only gave him the largest crickets I have, and they just walk all over the screen, would stay for days if I did not remove them.
He shows absolutely NO interest in them what so ever.
He does however love superworms, which I feed real well. I feed all my feeders well each day, since my lizards are what they eat

He also goes nuts for grasshoppers, when I can get them, and moths. But crickets stink in his opinion

I would love to start a colony of roaches, but my husband said he does not mind ALL my lizards, or hearing the thousands of crickets all night (feels as though hes camping out)
BUT.... will NOT tolerate roaches in the house

I have made the argument of no smell, I would get the ones who do not climb, he said NO roaches. So since I'm in this hobby alone, I do not want to make WAVES, if ya know what I mean.

So just wondering what you fed him when he was LENNY, hehehhee LOL
-----
PHEve / Eve

Contact PHEve

Eve,
I used to feed "Lenny" mostly silkworms, lobsters and superworms. He was offered crickets, but like most of my other big males, he preferred other items.

I use hornworms on a regular basis here also, and the combination of foods other than crickets kept him happy. Most of my adult males aren't fed crickets much at all anymore.

Grasshoppers are seasonal around here, but I jump on the opportunity to use them when it comes. Cold mornings make grasshopper catching in Vegas about as easy as easter-egg hunting.

Superworms are good jump starting (fatty) foods, just make sure they don't get too many or it can be hard to break them from the superworms.

Silkworms are still a classic favorite of mine. I like to buy them big because the maintenance on them gets to be time consuming for me. I like to feed off them fast and get smaller shipments more often.

Crickets don't smell if you clean them often.... I've devised a method of cricket cleaning that takes me about 45 seconds to completely clean a single bin of 5,000 adult crickets (I do it almost daily now). I'm still keeping my "method" secret for some reason, sorry! Took me too long to figure out how to do it right. Most commercial cricket gutloads have such a pleasant smell to them that any odor the crickets do make is covered up by the "grainy" smell of the feed.

-----
Tyler Stewart
Las Vegas NV
www.BLUEBEASTREPTILE.com

Thanks Tyler, I will have to get some large silkworms I guess.

Crickets do not bother me either, I clean my bins ALOT, due to the fact the reptile room is in a bedroom, right next to ours.
So can not have crazy smells lurking through the house, hehehehe.

I always bed mine in oatmeal, smells nice and they eat it also.

I need tons of crickets, thousands.... for all my other lizards. I breed them / and buy some in small sizes when needed for little guys. But CadBerry just don't like them

Great pic ya posted, colorful guy!
-----
PHEve / Eve

Contact PHEve

Hi-

Lobster roaches are the way to go. They mass produce, and require little maintenance with almost no smell at all. Get a good group of adults, if you want to start a colony. Feed a quality gutload and water source, sit back and watch the colony grow. Roa Roa Roaches! Like everyone has said, they do climb anything they can grip. Vaseline will contain them, if your animals will cup feed or hand feed this is way to go! Our chameleons love them, and many of our customers have replaced crickets with Lobster Roaches. Hope this helps!

-----
John W. Lucas
www.CHAMELEONPARADISE.com
www.CALIFORNIASILKWORMS.com

Chameleons Online E-Zine Author

Playing the devil's advocate here, I personally
don't like lobster roaches. They tend to hidenot
move around alot while in the feeding dishes (they try to burrow or get to the lowest darkest point.)
They also climb glass which makes the vaselinebug stop
pretty messy and inconvenient. I find them in my house all the time, mostly around power adapters where they keep warm
and hatch out tons of little babies. They also get into my other
roach bins and infest them! They do have a very soft body which makes them excellent once ingested however. A new roach species becoming more popular is Blatta lateralis. Cricket size, breeds nearly as fast as lobsters, fast movingnon burrowing, and they don't climb!
They are still relatively expensive to get a colony going at this point, but superior to lobsters in my opinion
It's a good idea to get multiple colonies of different species going at once, that way your herps have a good variety,
and you can say goodbye to crickets forever!
I currently have discoids, distanti, dubias, lateralis, and lobsters, and rotate them as a staple. Dubias and lateralis
are my favorites for positive qualities.
Best part is they don't smell, and no noise!
Garrett

I had lobsters to start and Luna loved them when she was young and stopped eating them later on. As for keeping, I used vaseline and/or two-sided tape to keep the roaches in their container, but it was still a pain in the butt and some got out.

They do breed quickly and I suppose if you have LOTS of animals to feed (like Tyler and John) they probably are the most cost effective.

That said...I now have discoid and orange head (thank you Morgana and Victor . Before Luna died she was not eating them, but I kept them for Darwin (Bearded Dragon) as he grew. He will sometimes eat them and sometimes not, but he is not sure if he is brumating or not so is being very picky! lol!

As for general care? THEY CANNOT BE BEAT! As has already been said, they do not smell (a couple species release a defensive odor but nothing too bad and only when disturbed), very cheap and easy to feed, super easy to gutload, no noise. I am not looking for huge colonies just yet so I keep them at normal room temp and have lots of babies - I can only imagine what I would have if I kept there tempms up!

Ok, that's my stuff....

lele
-----
Chameleon Help & Resource Info

0.1 Veiled Chameleon - Luna. She's now hanging from her big jungle gym in the sky
1.0 Beardie - Darwin
0.2 felines - Kyndra and Lita
0.1 African Clawed Frog - Skipper
0.3 Mad. Hissers (2 died ;(
0.1 Chilean Rose Hair Tarantula - Rosa Leigh
0.1 Goliath Bird-Eater Tarantula - Natasha