Dubia Roach colony tips

[stinax182]

I've had my colony for a couple months now and I feel it's going good. I just have a couple problems that maybe people with more experience can help me with.

I keep my colony in a large storage container with egg crates. When I clean them I remove the crates and dump all the debris into a dish. Then I basically pick through the roach poop for the roaches that didn't climb on the crates. It's fine for the large ones but the babies are a different story....


I'm starting to make my own roach chow. I use a blended mixture of unmedicated chicken mash, whole oatmeal, cherrios, oat clusters with honey and I offer fresh veggies and fruits every other day. Is there any way I can improve my food?

Do I supplement the roaches with the same calcium and multi vitamin powder I do my reptiles? And how often? I alternate between the two powders weekly for my reptiles.

Any tips or criticism is appreciated!

 

[Lpsouth1978]

Search the forums for blogs about dry gut loads by sandrachameleon. She has done several of them. There are sooooooo many things you can add to you gut load. The one I am using right now has:

Organic alfalfa
Coconut flour
Flax meal
Vegetable protein
Organic honey nut granola
Dried peas
Stone ground corn meal
Organic powdered milk
A little bit of my calcium powder w/o D3

I got everything from a health foods store near me. It needs to be ground to as fine a powder as possible. I know some people use coffee grinders for this, but I don't have one and they will only do small quantities. I actually have a Vitamix blender that will make quite a bit and makes a very fine powder. There is really no end to the list of things you can add to your gut load. You can almost go to a health food store and get almost any dry ingredients. Just stay away from dog and cat foods.

 

[stinax182]

Thank you for the informative reply!

 

[junglefries]

My grinder broke. Come to find out, a cheap $20 blender works just as good. I fill it up about a 1/3 full and push the gfind button. Works great. I even use it to grind up bran for superworm substrate.