Here, here! Most feeder roaches are a far cry from the pest species. Even limiting yourself to non-climbing, tropical species leaves you with a ton of options. Furthermore, most roach species are gutloadable par excellence. Their digestive tracts are far longer than those of crickets, meaning longer nutrient storage and digestion. Of course, I’ve heard it said that common gutloading practices are silly, futile, and “a fairy tale”, because chameleons can’t digest plant material such as squash, spirulina, etc. But, since there is empirical evidence demonstrating that chameleons can and do make use of gut contents such as squash, spirulina, etc., when the insects have already done the digestive work for them, I am quite happy to use well-gutloaded roaches—with their long digestive tract—as frequent feeders.
. I actually stayed away from chameleons for years because I initially got the impression they needed roaches to thrive(not true, they need variety though) and that freaked me out. Eventually I figured it was just the stigma. People even tell me now, you better not let those get out, they'll infest your house. Meanwhile, there are like 5? Species that infest houses out of the thousands and rarely does anyone use those species for feeders. I guess since crickets don't infest houses, we don't associate them with filth, but they are probably the most unhygienic and nasty insects we keep as feeders lol.
Hopefully now you can try out some new feeders.
