Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

I am looking to start a roach breeding project to sustain my feeding needs for 2 leopard geckos. I intended on breeding lobster roaches, but now I'm not sure. I have heard they smell, though most caresheets say they don't, I've heard they're a hassle to feed to leos, because they can escape easily. I've heard not all leos will even eat them.

Does anyone have a sustainable roach population for their animals? What kind are you using? How many roaches would you start with for a small colony, enough to feed 2 geckos or more? Do these things smell? Have you had escape issues?

My breeding space would be a 10 gallon with UTH and a 60 watt infrared if necessary.

Thanks for taking the time to read my message, peace.

I'm currently working on breeding a colony of false death head roaches. I started with 5, and they recently just gave birth to many. They've been in the 10 gallon with a uth and a infared and it's been great. No smell, can't climb glass or fly. The trick is to be patient when starting out. Since I only started with five, it's taken a little longer to get it all started out and the past month I've still been feeding crickets, but in the long run I'm sure it will pay off! Hope that helps a little!

I too started a colony of False Death Heads (Blaberus Discoidalis), better known as Discoids, 2 months ago. I chose these over Lobster roaches because they don't climb, jump or fly. That was very important to me. There was no way I wanted to fight with climbing roaches. The only downfall to Discoids is that the adults are way too big to be fed to a Leo. You only feed off the babies/small nymphs. But, I don't really view that as a downfall, no matter what species you breed you have to have "adults" to keep producing babies LOL I started with 55 roaches, a mix of sub-adults & adults, as of about a week ago they had produced 70 babies Since I'm feeding 11 Leos right now, it will still be awhile before I can start feeding the roaches off. They absolutely do not smell, the only thing I ever smell when I open their tub up is the fruits & veggies I put in with them. I have mine in a very large rubbermaid tub, 35 gal I think. I would think no matter what species you went with, you would want to start with at least 20 roaches.

Ive started a colony of Lobster Roaches and Im loving it!
They reproduce very very VERY FAST! If you keep the enclosure clean they wont smell. If you put a vaseline barrier at the top of the container they wont escape (Ive never had any lobster roaming around my house!!).
I began with 25 lobster and Im currently a proud owner of 2000 medium nymphs to adult lobster's. I refuse to count the smaller ones because every day or so they give live birth to 26-28 more roaches.
anyway that's just my opinion! Lobster Roaches RLZ!
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2.4.4 Leopard Gecko (Abraxas, Trinny, Susahna)
0.2.0 Homonota Darwinii (Talus & Gracilis)
0.1.0 Cham Caliptratus (Al Respecto)
1.0.0 Golden Retriever (Cafu)
1.0.0 Black Cat (Felipe)
0.0.8000 Tenebrio Molitor
0.0.2000 Zoophoba Mario
0.0.2500 Lobster Roaches