list of staple diet without crickets, roaches, or other potential infestation risk

Oh I agree! I'll throw some food in their just to watch them swarm it at times lol. I put half a cucumber in my OH and dubia bins yesterday and had to come in the room last night to check how much they ate of it. I find it cool how fast they make things disappear lol. Their intelligence is pretty impressive for an insect as well.
 
I'm in the US- I didn't realize we can't get locusts here. If they are superior to crickets and have additional benefitscI'll figure out a way to make that happen. Crickets are SUPER destructive IME besides the fact I basically have PTSD from the smell of them having grown up in the 70'sand 80's with nothing else but mealworm available.
GREAT point about the snails and stickworms, I'd forgotten I have them on the list.
***-->probably not the right place for it but if anyone keeps freshwater fish I have some awesome super daphnia (also known as scuds or gammarus) that I have been breeding for a couple of years for hardniess, growth, and quick reproduction. If anyone wants to trade cultures of stick insects, silkworms, or snails I'll swap you. They can take temps from 40 degrees to 95 degrees and double in population once a month, plus are very large. Zero maintenance too, just a gallon plastic container of any size, no substrate, whatever you want to gut load they will eat,-***


Back to the panther food, does this seem like a reasonable staple diet and setups?

1. Silkworm culture kept in a tank with a live mulberry bonsai-probably a 14 gallon hexagon aquarium.
2. Snails in a small terrarium with sterile substrate
3. stickbugs
4. locusts
5. If you only had to pick 1 other would it be dubia or some other roach/beetle?

All of the above would be gut-loaded to the extent possible
Other insects would be supplemented as often as possible

If anyone has suggestions on suppliers for the above post them for me-the snails seemed tough to get when I looked several weeks ago.
 
You honestly can't get locusts here. And you absolutely can't let them get out. They are a huge agricultural pest here and will easily survive. You can harvest your own wild grasshopper and try to start a captive population but I can 100% guarantee you they will not be as easy as you hope. Also silkworms will strip a full sized mulbwrry in one generation. A bonsai wouldn't feed even one entire generation.
 
Andee said:
You honestly can't get locusts here. And you absolutely can't let them get out. They are a huge agricultural pest here and will easily survive. You can harvest your own wild grasshopper and try to start a captive population but I can 100% guarantee you they will not be as easy as you hope. Also silkworms will strip a full sized mulbwrry in one generation. A bonsai wouldn't feed even one entire generation.
Click to expand...

WOW thanks!!!
There are a lot of Mulberry trees around here, I could gather them by the bagful and freeze for winter I guess, and then just plant one in the yard if I want to continue. Either way mulberrys produce like crazy around here so we'd at least get some juice (the actual fruit is too seedy for my liking).
 
You can buy the silkworms relatively cheap and hatch them as needed.

I would go with a roach for number 5. Lobsters are faster to reproduce and I understand more desirable than dubias to most chams since they have a softer body.
 
Mulberry trees grow like weeds, I bought one that was about 5 inches? in the beginning online. It has now become five feet. I also have another that is huge and we regularly have to mutilate to stop it from becoming a problem. They aren't very sensitive trees. I love the fruit. Make amazing pies and very little sugar is needed. But you will need to harvest the fruit with tarps if you wants to get the most of them possible. They fall very quickly once ripe.
 
It depends on the climbers if they are an issue or not. I don't recommend hardier species if you want climbers and I definitely don't recommend species that don't require high humidity/ higher heat and substrate. Those specific species usually never try climbing and getting out and if they do they die quickly, lasting a few days at most. But honestly a male dubia roach can technically fly... they are just smart enough to know everything they could possibly want or need is in the bin so they never do.
 
Do you know if the silkworms preferwhite or red mulberry?
The white mulberry fruit actually looks like caterpillars, as a kid I would get a little grossed out eating them they are so close looking!
I wonder though if that's the ones they prefer since they would be naturally camouflaged in a white mulberry tree.
 
in my experience they eat all of them, though I feed them black mulberry only now from my own backyard, and then when I am selling them I change them over to chow.
 
I feel you on the infestation thing, my husband hates bugs and lose one's happen in crickets and dubia no matter how careful you are! I started putting sticky fly trap paper on the ground near the bins as all my feeders are in the same location so when the stray bug does get out it gets stuck to the sticky pad and thrown out. Just a thought you could try so they don't escape to far into the house! You do have to be careful of the sticky pads around other pets as they are quite sticky! Also dubia are great and have really no smell and are very easy to maintain but I have found my guys get bored of them very easy. My veiled used to love them but won't really go for them now, and my Panthers will not eat them in their cups at all(if cup feeding).They will only eat them if I place them right in front of them. Of course you can trick them and put them in the cup with crickets but you will still need the crickets. Another feeder is red runner roaches, they are faster than dubia and breed with little effort like dubia, but they can escape as well and are fast but they stick to sticky paper well too haha!! The least invasive are the hornworms and silkworms but they are also the most costly. Good luck on deciding☺
 
Not sure if anyone said orange head, but they are your best bet for roaches. Can't reproduce in our houses, can't climb, won't fly, active and Chams like them more, soft body and meatier, easily reproduce, easily gutload, great sizes for any chameleon type, etc. They have no downside, if you're getting 1 roach species, get OH. Dubia are overrated.
 
Franquixote said:
No way am I going with any roaches that can climb;
check out this horror story!:

http://www.faunaclassifieds.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-253038.html
Click to expand...
I understand.... as far north as you are, they won't multiply in your home but even a temp issue could be a problem. I accidentally (not thinking) dumped my giant hisser's substrate into an indoor bin where I keep kindling for my wood stove.... later found a bunch of babies.... that's when i figured out what I had done. They lived a few weeks I guess. Never saw them again. But if a tropical roach was going to infest, it would be lobsters.
 
Plenty of warmth? I forget the target range but I used a 40 gallon breeder with an under tank heater and egg carton piled on top so they could choose how close they wanted to be. If you haven't had them long, it may just be getting ready to explode. The babies are extremely tiny so you may not see them yet.
 
yeah theyre in a heated closet at 85-90. I have cork and a bioactive substrate in there. for all I know babies are hiding, i try to leave them alone other than feedings. I got them I think in April. So not too long.
 
Still a young colony. I used bark from the wood pile and egg crate. Nothing special. I lost everything 4 years ago. No bioactive substrate back then unless you went into your yard and dug some up.
 
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