Best roach alternative?

I brought a colony of roaches into the house the other day:

Husband: what's that?
Me: bugs
Husband: what kind?
(Why is he asking me this?! Usually he just rolls his eyes at me when I bring in bugs)
Me: dubia
Husband: what's a dubia?
(seriously?! He usually has zero interest in my bugs)
Me: dubia are insects
(see how I didn't say roaches?)
Husband accepts vague answer, loses interest, resumes TV watching as I duck downstairs to my bug room. Lol
you are my hero
 
Dubai’s are not as bad as I thought. They don’t crawl up the bin... and are easier to take care than crickets. I’m glad I decided to get over my mental roach barrier

The cage from diy has a couple gaps, so bought this
Zengest Door Strip Bottom, House... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K3YL8K9?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Roaches won’t escape... I hope
I have Colony of over 1000 non have escaped. They don’t climb smooth surfaces. I even have holes on my lid to
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Looking forward to reading the responses. My wife also said no to roaches for me. So I'm going to do crickets, silk worms, super worms, and blsf. Roaches will be hidden and used sparringly until I can get her to agree to them


Easy way, explain to her.

Crickets can infest your house, the roaches can't.
Crickets smell, the roaches don't.
Crickets make noise, Roaches don't.
Crickets can and will escape, Roaches don't.

That ought to wrap that up. If not, get roaches and say they are beetles, your wife and his parents think roach they think American cockroach, that's not what your getting. Show them, it's not that, or lie and say it's a beetle of some type :).

Besides, my wife hated the idea of roaches, she still hates the orangeheads. But she likes the Hissers more than I do. She says those are her roaches now. She likes to see the babies and say "Look they have a little family".

I have also been exploring starting a Ghost Mantid Colony, and now she wants her own Orchid Mantids. You might be surprised, if you start getting bugs, she might start liking bugs too.
 
So they can essentially get gout from to much water?
Not to my knowledge because the Uric acid is excreated as the urate/urea. But I’m pretty sure gout is cause by dietary protein that is not excreted by the kidneys and out as waste. Normally this is due to some metabolic issue. Not an expert but from what I learned in school this is the basics. Now it may be different in reptiles vs humans but I’m just assuming it is metabolized the same way. We just produce urine/liquid and reptiles urates/solid. I did look at my chams urate under a microscope and can confirm it is a glop of uric acid crystals lol. It’s pretty cool.
Where are you getting this from?
So my train of thought on this is from a human stand point and I am assuming it’s the same for reptiles. Diarrhea causes dehydration mild or severe. The body pulls excess fluid to the colon to flush everything out. Correct me if I’m wrong but to my understanding the water consumed from a reptile is converted and excreted out in the form of uric acid. This way the body holds on the the water to utilize it in other parts of the body. So my thinking is diarrhea/runny stool the water is not being saved and converted. Hopefully I am making sense lol!! Sounds good in my head but typing it out is another story :LOL:
 
I have mine in a bioactive set up I go in once a week to feed them. I don’t have a heat source on them right now because my house is so hot but I’m the winter I will be using a space heater to keep them warm.
 
I have mine in a bioactive set up I go in once a week to feed them. I don’t have a heat source on them right now because my house is so hot but I’m the winter I will be using a space heater to keep them warm.
How would i make a bioactive setup for them. Sorry I am pretty new to dubia roaches
 
Not to my knowledge because the Uric acid is excreated as the urate/urea. But I’m pretty sure gout is cause by dietary protein that is not excreted by the kidneys and out as waste. Normally this is due to some metabolic issue. Not an expert but from what I learned in school this is the basics. Now it may be different in reptiles vs humans but I’m just assuming it is metabolized the same way. We just produce urine/liquid and reptiles urates/solid. I did look at my chams urate under a microscope and can confirm it is a glop of uric acid crystals lol. It’s pretty cool.

Ok. I was just wondering because gout is caused by to much Uric acid in the blood stream. I guess it’s somewhat of a different process of it coming from protein sources rather then from water absorbtion?
 
I vote silkworms, then crickets for staple foods if roaches aren’t an option. Silkwroms are nutrious and easier to keep then crickets (in my experience). And if you dont feed them all off they turn into moths to give you more eggs and another feeder!

For other foods, BSFL is an easy, nutrious one to keep in large quantities. Hornworms are also a fav around here. I try to have a wide variety for them, and it makes it easier when one is running low to just switch over to another for a while.
 
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How would i make a bioactive setup for them. Sorry I am pretty new to dubia roaches

Add substrate, Cocofiber and some bark + Oak leaf litter. Ditch the Egg crates, and put cork flats/rounds instead. Add isopods, tropical dwarf whites work well, and spring tails. Dont change the substrate, add live plants if you want, or moss, but not required.
 
Add substrate, Cocofiber and some bark + Oak leaf litter. Ditch the Egg crates, and put cork flats/rounds instead. Add isopods, tropical dwarf whites work well, and spring tails. Dont change the substrate, add live plants if you want, or moss, but not required.

Do you know of a good place to get flats/rounds of cork for a good price? This is what I use. But they tend to be on the pricey side
 
Do you know of a good place to get flats/rounds of cork for a good price? This is what I use. But they tend to be on the pricey side


Umm ya, I had a place let me find it. Most I have gotten were on the expensive side, but I bought my wall panels from a place that was pretty cheap. It was like half of what they were on Amazon, and when I needed 12 18x24 inch panels that matter lol. Still cost me like 250.

The good thing is they last forever though :).

@Toothless the cham
I attached some pics of a Bioactive hisser colony.

So this is where I got my walls, https://www.reptilesupplyco.com/117-wholesale-natural-reptile-wood

I have been thinking about doing this method to see how it pans out.

http://www.neherpetoculture.com/woodnatural

The bulk by the pound cork, the cork is pretty light so 5lbs seems like it would be alot.

I have heard that orchid suppliers and such have it cheaper, I have never found those kinds of places though, the few I have want you to buy 100s of dollars worth.

There is 4 mediums and 2 rounds in my attached, so like 30 bucks, but worth. They mostly hang out in the rounds cramped up, or on the glass behind the first cork. They seem to like to be smashed between 2 surfaces or each other. My orange heads, dont really use the cork much, the males do sometimes but the females just seem to burrow, so I gave them a few flats and really high soil.
 

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Umm ya, I had a place let me find it. Most I have gotten were on the expensive side, but I bought my wall panels from a place that was pretty cheap. It was like half of what they were on Amazon, and when I needed 12 18x24 inch panels that matter lol. Still cost me like 250.

The good thing is they last forever though :).

@Toothless the cham
I attached some pics of a Bioactive hisser colony.

So this is where I got my walls, https://www.reptilesupplyco.com/117-wholesale-natural-reptile-wood

I have been thinking about doing this method to see how it pans out.

http://www.neherpetoculture.com/woodnatural

The bulk by the pound cork, the cork is pretty light so 5lbs seems like it would be alot.

I have heard that orchid suppliers and such have it cheaper, I have never found those kinds of places though, the few I have want you to buy 100s of dollars worth.

There is 4 mediums and 2 rounds in my attached, so like 30 bucks, but worth. They mostly hang out in the rounds cramped up, or on the glass behind the first cork. They seem to like to be smashed between 2 surfaces or each other. My orange heads, dont really use the cork much, the males do sometimes but the females just seem to burrow, so I gave them a few flats and really high soil.

Thank you for posting the link. Never ordered from reptilesupplyco, but a couple years ago I ordered a good amount of cork from neherp. I always liked their selections of things.
 
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