Dubia roaches ok for Tokay and Panther?

[cooper01]

I have read many many care sheets on the two species of gecko that i have and none of them explicitly say that roaches are acceptable food. I was wondering if anyone could tell me what is going on. I would very much like to start a dubia colony and feed them to my geckos!!! thanks alot :roll:

 

[feedersinc]

dubias are 10x better than crickets, alot more meatier, dont climb or fly, hardly no smell! If you feed crickets i wouldnt see why you couldnt feed dubias i would just assume you need to feed the right size.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Dubia are fine for both species mentioned.

 

[cliff_f]

I really dont like using roaches but they will be ok for them. I still think crickets are alot better.

 

['stoph]

I used roaches for a while but then found an egg case hatching in the terra, didn't want them little buggers breed over there.
-they were more difficult to find for removal compared to crickets/
-tokays didn't eat as much as they would with crickets.

 

[cooper01]

Mixed answers!!!!

I have read both good and bad responses on this matter. Is it true that tokays will not eat as many dubia as crickets. Really don't want to make any large mistakes setting up this dubia colony. Any further information on this matter would be very very much appreciated.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Dubia are not a very active species of roach and they tend to burry themselves in substrate. When feeding them to an arboreal species like tokay, I have found the best thing to do is place the dubia in plastic "gladware" type bowl. That way the geckos can climb in the bowl, eat what they want, and the dubia won't burry themselves. It also makes it easy to remove any uneaten roaches the next day as you just have to grab the bowl out. Lateralis are another good choice for roach feeders. They're a lot more active (more like crickets) and breed a lot faster. Either choice is far superior to crickets. Much higher meat to shell ratio, no bad smell, they live a LOT longer so you're not dealing with dead bugs all the time, no noise, and they're a more natural food source for most geckos. Roaches are native to almost every environment in the world...crickets are not. Also, tropical roach species won't thrive in your home if they get loose...crickets will. After many years of working with crickets, once I converted over to roaches, I never looked back.

 

[feedersinc]

I used roaches for a while but then found an egg case hatching in the terra, didn't want them little buggers breed over there.
-they were more difficult to find for removal compared to crickets/
-tokays didn't eat as much as they would with crickets.

Why feed female dubias off for? they are the producers of your colony, also dubias are bigger and alot meatier than crickets so most animals dont need to eat as many.

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Dubia don't lay eggs...they give live birth.

 

['stoph]

Dubia don't lay eggs...they give live birth.

yes and no sometimes they breed them out inside but sometimes they lay egg cases. 100% sure 'cause i saw it with my own eyes.

this is a pic of hissing roach but i had dubia and it looked practically the same


ref:Feeder Bugs

Why feed female dubias off for? they are the producers of your colony, also dubias are bigger and alot meatier than crickets so most animals don't need to eat as many.

I was just testing if my animals liked them or not. I had around 20 roaches and i had no intention breeding them before i would find out if they were good feeder bugs for my tokays or not - they proved big breeders tripling their numbers in 2-3 weeks while the temperature and humidity were pretty low for them.

edit:
can be a positive thing or negative:
Tokays often slam their larger food items against walls, branches to kill it - with roaches you'll see this active hunting behaviour more often
Downside: I had to clean out the cage more often because the roaches were slightly to big for them to swallow in 1 piece. So a lot of clipped wings, and roach heads all over the terra floor, while crickets always magically disappear over night .

 

[oli]

that don't look like a dubia to me, it looks like a lateralis, but I guess I'm wrong cuz it is a madagascar hissing roach! Dubia shells can be really hard, and even though i have noticed that geckos can digest this, I prefer to give them the nice soft freshly molted dubia. Even the nymphs are good for any smaller gecko when they're white. It is really a luxury since I will find a large white dubia in 5000 every few days, but maybe there's more and I just don't see them.

 

[TroyL]

I have been feeding my tokay dubia's for about 6 months. I started out feeding males from the colony then the males seem to just going to quick so I switched back and forth. If I have tons of females that what I feed. I always try keep a 20 females for 1 male. He use to eat tons of crickets but now only eats 2 or 3 roaches a week. My sons leo eats one about every day. or an adult every 2 days.

 

[badkelpie]

It is true that they eat fewer roaches compared to crickets. This is because roaches are more nutritious, they don't need to eat as many to get the nutrition they need.

Dubias only work well if you can feed them from a bowl. If you need a species that won't burrow in the substrate or hide all the time, lateralis are good. They're more cricket-like. I just started using them for my toads, they love them.