Ahh! I can't believe I just bought roaches!

[Olimpia]

Iiiick Blegh.

I finally decided to do it though, I went and I ordered myself 50 dubia roaches to start a colony. My roommate is absolutely 100% not on board with this so I have to keep the whole buying them and keeping them thing a secret lol.

How long before the icky skin crawly fear and repulsion of them goes away?

 

[Corpsman82]

eh id try to sell your roomate on the fact that there not normal household roaches. in fact i would just call them dubias leave the cockroach out of it. let em know there not like crickets they dont make any noise they dont smell they dont jump out of containers so you wont have to worry as much of them getting out.

 

[Olimpia]

He knows that, but he prefers worms and crickets to something that's always been considered a pest. I'm making the sacrifice because I know that I have a couple animals I'm rehabing that would benefit greatly from these guys, but he's really uncomfortable with the idea when we talk about it. I'll tell him eventually though lol.

 

[Miss Lily]

I've been keeping chams (and therefore, feeders too) for almost 18 months now and I still have to put the crix in the fridge to slow them down before I clean them out, lol! And I still use tweezers to pick 'em up too! Don't mind the other things just hate crix! Uuurgh! Dunno if I could 'do' dubias either!

 

[Karen]

Dubia roaches are great, they rarely escape and chams love them, well mine do. If you are worried about escapees put an inch layer of petroleum jelly around the inside of the tub they wont get out, i keep mine with no lid on this way.

 

[pssh]

I got over the ew factor after a few days with some handling. I actually prefer them now... Holding crickets makes me feel icky compared to holding the roaches now... (to tell you the truth, I actually think the way the roaches heads are covered by their shell is really cool looking) I've had to deal with crickets for over 7 years now and I still am uncomfortable with holding/touching them.

 

[Olimpia]

Haha We'll see how well I adjust to the dubias. I really don't handle any feeder insect unless I have to. I've been using tweezers to grab all my worms, and I use a little fish net to catch the crickets and dump them into a calcium container, where they get dumped into the cages without me ever having to touch them. I'll grab little mealworms and little crickets without much fuss, but I can't touch superworms (mainly because those things bite!) and I can't touch the adult crickets. Blaaah lol

However I do love my reptiles, so I'll cope in order to do what's best for them. But I'm in no way a "man" about it lol. So I'll just woop out the cleaning gloves and tweezers and do what I have to do to take care of the dubias without any physical contact!

But hey, at least I bought them right? That's the first step lol.

 

[Montium]

Good luck I never thought I'd get used to them either but they are kinda cool and easy to deal with.

 

[jojackson]

Lol I thought you were going to say 'I can't beleive it's not butter!"

Roaches are creepy critters if you ask me, Ive gotten so used to handling them it's second nature now, but if one runs up my arm, it still freaks me out, makes me do 'the get it off' dance!

I learnt to use containers to catch off the tub sides and transfer them, and to do it quickly Lol. I rarely use my hands to catch them.

 

[Pure]

I use one of these to handle my hissers. to hell with picking them up!!! *shudders*

 

[Zen Reptiles]

Amazing how deeply social constructs are ingrained into your psyche hey?

Your roommate will be totally on board after seeing how much quieter, cleaner, and pretty smelling they are compared to crickets.

Get to know a few, you might end up getting attached to them and start keeping roaches instead of chams!

 

[Nicodemayo]

Before I started my colony, I was very hesitant because of my fear of roaches. Now I am so comfortable with roaches, that if I find a wild one (yeah the really fast ones that climb and fly) in my house, I'll catch it by hand and flush them down the toilet when I used to throw shoes or whatever object was closest and scream like a little girl.... Weird huh....?

 

[summoner12]

I used to jump when they would climb onto me.... now I don't mind Dubia at all... some of the other kinds.... i am not friends with them yet...

 

[Olimpia]

I don't know that I will ever get to the point where I grab the wild roaches haha. Just yesterday a guy friend and I were in Petsmart with our dogs and came across a large roach in the dog food isle. It scurried under the isle shelves and we ran like idiots past it, got the food, and ran back down shrieking and flailing lmao. We laughed because we know how riddiculous it is, but blegh... I can't usually stand large insects.

We will see however lol.

 

[Montium]

They are not like palmetto bugs, at least not for me