Hello everyone! = ) TEMPORARILY SOLD OUT OF B. DUBIA! PLEASE INQUIRE ON FUTURE AVAILABILITY, THANKS EVERYONE!! I currently have a pretty extensive surplus of feeder roaches, so I'll be selling quantities of them throughout the summer. Feeder roaches are absolutely fantastic; they are more nutritionally sound than many other feeders, have a good meat:shell ratio, and a great protein:fat ratio. Furthermore, once a colony is established, you may never need to buy feeders again! They do not smell, chirp, jump, and herps love em = ) These species will NOT infest your home...they come from tropical environments and require slightly specialized care, it's a fact that only a very small fraction of roaches worldwide are considered "pests." Blaptica dubia AKA Guyana Orange Spotted Roach (dubia's) B. dubia roaches are the most popular species in the feeder world. They range in size from about 1/8" when born to approximately 2.5" as adults. Depending on their care, they can reach sexual maturity within about 5 months and females can live anywhere from 12-24 months, producing approximately 20-30 live babies every month. Males have wings but cannot fly (only flutter fall) and females lack obvious wings. A great feeder! FREE SAMPLE - 1 dozen B. dubia, you specify size nymphs, only pay for shipping! ($6) 50 Mixed - $15 shipped SALE! $12 shipped! 100 Mixed -$21 shipped SALE! $15 shipped! 250 Mixed - $35 shipped SALE $25 shipped!! All prices include shipping, a 10% overcount and 1 adult pair per 50 mixed. If you can find better prices somewhere, send me the ad, and I will do what I can to match or beat their price! Shelfordella (Blatta) lateralis AKA Turkistan Roach/Rusty Reds/Red Runners * Please inquire on quantities and prices - Looking to sell one of my full breeding colonies, although I may part them into quanitites. These will be sold as mixed culture with breeding adults, I will not separate sizes. Turkistan roaches are great cricket replacements, they attain approx. the same size as the domestic cricket both when born and into adulthood. This species lays egg cases (ootheca), and reproduce very quickly compared to many other species; laying 1-2 cases per month, each containing 20-30 babies. Males have wings (but cannot fly, only flutter-fall) and females lack them. This species is relished by any herp that feeds by movement, they are an excellent cricket replacement: Fast moving, and have a tendency not to hide as readily as other species. NEW!! Orange Head Roach starter colonies! (Eublaberus posticus) An awesome and often overlooked feeder roach species. These guys are even meatier than dubia, much more active, and still reproduce at just about the same rate! Nymphs are a beautiful red/maroon color and look like fat little tanks. They do have a mild defensive odor, but to me it only smells like overripe fruit. These are a favorite for the majority of my herps, and care for them is identical to that of B. dubia. That being said, do NOT keep this species with dubia or any other insect for that matter, as they will readily kill and consume others that are not their kind. They are known wing biters, and even cannibals in overcrowded/improper housing situations; but this can be rememdied by lots of moisture in their diet and debatably slightly higher protein content. The key to keeping these guys is having a dish of water crystals or some moisture available at all times...one of my favorite roaches! Both males and females have wings, but neither can fly nor climb. Starter cultures available: 25 mixed - $15 shipped 50 mixed - $21 shipped 100 mixed - $35 shipped I'm hoping to eventually have large enough colonies to lower the prices and make this great species more readily available, I'm not nearly as overrun with these guys as I'd like to be being my primary feeder species. US sales only. Sorry, No sales to Florida. I accept PayPal and Money Orders... orders are shipped out only after I receive payment. I gurantee live arrival when temperatures are between 40-90 degrees F on both ends, typically shipped priority mail via USPS (2-3 day delivery). Feel free to PM or email me at JeffreH88@yahoo.com at any time. I'm willing to answer any questions you may have about feeder roaches & their care, and can help you determine what species and what quantity is right for you based on your herp's needs. Get your colony going and you will have an endless supply of feeders for your herp(s)! Thanks! -Jeff UPDATED 8/8/2011 - New sale prices and new species added! PS: I am also potentially willing to trade quantities for other roach species; specifically Eublaberus posticus (Orange Heads), Elliptorhina javanica (Javan/Halloween Hissing Roach), and Archimandrita tesselata (Peppered Roach). I'm a bit of a roach enthusiast/collector lol
Thanks! Feel free to spread the word! = ) I still have TONS available! I'll likely have these available all summer and into fall. If I haven't posted an update saying I'm sold out, they're still up for grabs! I will be out of town the week of July 25-29th, so any order placed before this will be shipped out the 1st week of August. I will have limited to zero internet access during this time - Feel free to shoot me any inquiries or questions but know that I will be unable to respond during the dates listed and will get back to you asap!
Still have boatloads to go around! Help me out! Just did some bin cleaning: This is a 20 gallon bin nearly 2/3 full of nothing but Roaches...and thats less than half of my colony! They're taking overrrr!!! Due to the heat, I'll include cold packs at no extra charge = ) I am letting ago an entire starter colony of Turkistan roaches (Blatta lateralis) with tons of adults. I can't get an accurate count, but its likely in the 5k range. Msg me for pricing and details. If interested, I may be willing to sell starter cultures of Orange Head Roaches (Eublaberus posticus). A great feeder, just as productive as dubia, and extra meaty! Msg for details.
So, despite my extensive knowledge base in regard to reptiles, I'm fairly ignorant about using roaches as feeders. Would you use a normal gut-load on them, like with a group of crickets?
You can raise them exactly like you would a colony of crickets, there is just a lot less noise, smell, and jumping = ) The only difference is where crickets may breed at normal room temperature, roaches generally require some supplemental heat. Slap a piece of heat tape under a dark bin, throw some egg flats in there and you have all you need other than food and moisture. Moisture can be in the form of water crystals and/or fresh greens, veggies, fruit etc...the normal gutloading goods. They will readily take dry feed of almost any nature, although I've found they do have a slight preference for higher protein gutloads. I'll use mixes of chick starter, fish food, and quality dog and cat kibble as my base dry feeds for these guys. I've found that B. dubia grow and breed optimally in the mid to upper 80's. I'm a little rushed right now, but feel free to ask any additional questions! I can go into extreme detail with these guys if necessary, I'm kind of a roach enthusiast and collector =P In this thread, I've gone into some additional detail about gutloading and roach nutritional comparisons to other feeder species: http://www.reptileboards.com/threads/what-do-you-personally-feed-your-feeders.64028/
So, I've always been more of a.. breed, feed, and out the door.. kind of reptile keeper. I pride myself in sending out healthy animals and I've never had an animal die on my customers that didn't involve an error committed by the customers themselves (such as not providing correct lighting, or letting an animal become dehydrated, etc) and even so, these problems never occur fast enough for there to be any doubts about the truth that I sold them a wonderful creature and they dropped the ball, not me. But, even so, I have never really given any thought to what I feed them, I just throw in some gut-loaded crickets or the appropriate mixture of veggies, and everything works out fine, they are happy, healthy, and colorful. So, keeping this in mind, would you suggest that someone such as myself switch from "crickets (and other supplemental prey items)" to instead going with "roaches (and other supplemental prey items)" when feeding the variety of my reptiles? It would not be a cost issue, either way I will always be raising my own feeders, but would you say that this is the nutritionally smarter choice? My animals are always healthy beyond a doubt, but could they really be noticeably better? or would I just be spoiling them?
Oh and regardless of your answer, I know for a fact that my own leopard geckos hate roaches. Some leos might love them, but mine don't! I know this because I have always had the dubia as one of those "other supplementary prey items" that I mentioned, with crickets being the staple. But your answer might convince me to switch the staple foods for any animals I receive in the future, or even the ones I have now that will make the switch.. probably all of them but my picky leos...
I am a huge advocate for variety being the key to any diet, there are just some things that certain feeders have to offer that others simply don't. And I'm not just talking about the basic things like protein, fat, etc...but trace minerals and other micronutrients often overlooked and unaccounted for in nutritional analysis. This is why gutloading is so vitally important...insects will have some protein, some fat, moisture, and X content of other things even on an empty stomach. But insectivores count on the grain and vegetable matter consumed by their prey to pick up the minor things that aid in overall metabolism and well-being. That being said, we all know there are choices that are better than others. Silkworms for example not only contain an absolutely flawless protein:fat ration, high calcium and an easily digested body but they also contain an enzyme known as serrapeptase that is known to reduce arterial plaque and have other postive benefits. Mealworms are primarily a chitanous shell with a relatively poor protein:fat and calcium: Phosphorus ratio, but they are still better than waxworms that are essentially the equivalent of us consuming several tablespoons of butter. To get to the meat of your question: If you are feeding a single staple feeder say...75% of the time and supplemented the diet with a small variety of other insects for the additional 25%, you will want a decent staple feeder insect. Crickets are decent staple feeder insects, and so are roaches, soldier grubs, and silkworms. If we examine the nutritional analysis of a roach compared to a cricket, we can see multiple benefits for what we know herps thrive on. But the real question is this... how do we know what the ideal composition of a feeder is for an herp? Or specifically, a single species. Some species are excellent at metabolizing fat, others at passing chitanous exoskeleton, and others rely on a lean diet where fat is readily stored in places like the liver and other organs as opposed to places like a leopard gecko's tail. There's really no saying that bug with more protein is necessarily "better", but as a general rule, leaner food with more protein and less fat yields healthier animals. That being said, here's a chart of nutritional comparison between roaches and crickets, courtesy of Dexter and Debbie from http://doubleds.org (direct link: http://doubleds.org/newfeederpg.html) Sample Moisture Protein Fat Fiber Ash B. Laterallis 63.63% 36.5% 5.31% 2.19% 1.95% B. Dubia 61.18% 35.6% 6.75% 3.25% 2.01% Meal worms 58.74% 21.0% 15.52% 2.01% 1.18% Crickets 71.96% 18.5% 6.26% 2.09% 1.29% G. Portentosa 64.09% 26.7% 5.05% 5.62% 1.37% I realize this chart is probably difficult to read, so feel free to use the direct link. Now, examination of this chart shows us that feeder roaches as a whole are SIGNIFICANTLY leaner than crickets. Nearly doubling the amount of protein in most cases and having equal or lesser values for fat compostion. This is true for B. dubia, B. lateralis, and G. portentosa (Madagascar Hissing Roach). So in conclusion of this lond winded response, I would say there certainly are nutritional benefits to be found in roaches. Are they signifcant as a whole? We can't be sure, and there simply hasn't been the testing or long term exposure of feeder roaches compared to other feeders to really know... but the numbers would suggest that they are superior, and thats all we really have to run with right now = ) Have you tried other feeder roaches for your leo? I've found that B. dubia are sometimes refused by less aggresive species due to their overall lack of excitable movement and tendency to "play dead." They are relished by a vast majority of herps, particularly beardies, but I have difficulty getting a couple of my Rhacs to eat them. For those who turn their noses up to them, the B. lateralis or even E. posticus (orange heads) nymphs will get them feeding due to these species being more active.
UPDATES 8/8/2011! SUPER EPIC DUBIA SALE! I Have too many B. dubia!! New prices!!!! NEW roach species added! The awesome Orange Head Roach (Eublaberus posticus) now available!! 10,000 mixed colony of Blatta lateralis (Turkistan Roach) available. Please inquire. This is a self-sufficient colony packed full of adults. This colony alone has the capactiy to produce hundreds of nymphs DAILY. SOLD! I have limited supplies of water crystals available - please inquire if interested. An easy and cost effective way to keep your feeder bugs hydrated! 1oz of dry crystals yields approximately 1 gallon of water gel. FREE SAMPLES of B. dubia! Try them to out to see if your herp likes them! You only have to pay the cost of shipping ($6). You may specify the sizes of nymphs you would like with your sample...approx. a dozen roaches! Cold packs added at no extra charge if needed! These are some of the best prices on the web, folks.
Email sent! I am completely out of B. lateralis... sorry folks. I still have some B. dubia and can still offer Orange Head Roaches (E. posticus) per prices listed!
Wow! Interested buyers, please read: B. dubia Due to an overwhelming number of sales this week, I need to confirm my stock and ensure I can handle any orders on top of those already paid for. I must ensure that I can accomodate my own needs and a sustainable colony to keep supplying others members for the near future. Those who have sent payment this week - your roaches will be sent out Monday as planned. Those currently inquiring - Please allow me to check my stock and get back to you; if for some reason I cannot accomodate you for this coming week, I will find you a source and match my prices (I'll pay the difference). I promised roaches to you guys, and I am a man of my word. I don't mind eating a couple of bucks to ensure that you are provided with the product I claimed to have in stock. This is applicable to Ty, Steve and Jacob. To those interested - Feel free to PM or Email me with inquiries and I'll keep you posted on stock.
