dubia roaches and cat food

[dfourer]

I've been raising Blaptica dubia roaches successfully for some time. I recently read that some cat and dog food can not be fed to roaches because it has a roach poison chemical added. I got quite alarmed, but my google searches turned up no specific details. I did read a lot of posts by people who though cat food is a bad idea, full of chemicals, not healthy, etc.

I recently bought a bag of the cheapest cat food. The ingredients list is short so I looked up the chemicals listed. All turned out to be legitimate vitamin and mineral food supplements. One is taurine, an essential nutrient for cats. One ingredient is "poultry by-products", which means all the bones, skin, heads, feet, and other junk that comes from a slaughterhouse. Another is animal fat. The other ingredients are grains and soy beans. Sounds like a good diet for roaches to me. Checking the ingredients seems like a good idea though.

 

[Palor]

I feed cat food and dog food to my roaches and they are not being poisoned by anything. I sense a dirty net rumor in that statement somewhere.

Go check it out on snopes?

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

I refuse to give dog food or cat food to my roaches. Commercial dog food and cat food are made of crap. I don't even like giving it to my dog. And everything my roaches eat, goes into my geckos. There's a bunch of older posts about this already. Do a little searching through this forum and you'll find them.

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Cat/dog food Caution as Cricket Gutload: minimum crude fat levels

Hi ~

My take on NOT feeding cat or dog food to my dubias is the minimum crude fat level they contain...way too high.

They say we are what we eat. I once had a mature male leopard gecko (and perhaps a flyer---much less severe) die from severe hepatic lipidosis. The only thing I could trace any dietary cause to was that at the time I used Tetramin Fish Flakes and dog/puppy/cat/kitten food samples as just part of my cricket gutload...both too high in minimum crude fat. At the time my exotic vet suggested that I feed Alfalfa Hay (minimum crude protein - 18% and minimum crude fat -1.5%) to the crickets. I also gutload with Quaker's dry oatmeal and with Fluker's High Calcium Cricket Feed. No more deaths from hepatic lipidosis! :yahoo: (Stress can also cause fatty liver disease.)

 

[Palor]

I suppose I should add that I feed Blue Buffalo cat food, Origin and Taste of The Wild cat and dog food to the roaches, not your run of the mill friskies crud.

 

[cat_named_noodles]

Like Palor, the dog food I add to my feeder food is NOT your run of the mill, supermarket dog food, by far! I use Organics by Nature chicken dog food. Only 14% fat, organic ingredients, no corn/soy/wheat.... I also add fortified alfalfa pellets, nutritional yeast, bee pollen, calciuml, etc. to the chow I make.

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

WARNING a very generalized comment follows,

less than 3% fat
at least 50% carbohydrates
between 15 and 25% protein
B-2 2-75mcg/g

Maurice Pudlo