Feeder Roaches: Care and Breeding

[MauricesExoticPets]

I agree with most of what your saying, however due to my source I have my doubts. I am in no position to debate the whole insect nutrition that is for sure. I find myself in a tuff spot at this moment.

Okay I did not want to mention this for the obvious reasons on a forum, but the person whom I get all the information is an exotic vet. She has been a friend since childhood. I have been fortunate she has allowed me to attend lectures in exchange I would bring my reptiles as volunteers. She is obviously the person who I have referred my friends to which were diagnosed with gout.

I obviously cannot speak for her and will not even try. However, I have much faith in her for many reasons aside from her being a vet. I have seen the proof of everything she has said with my own eyes. She had 2 geckos, one lived to be 20 and the other 22. How often is that seen? This is what she told me:

Geckos are overfed in captivity. Most owners prefer to load their food items with supplements instead of feeding healthy low fat food items. They are kept under minimum requirements, small cages and fatty foods, not allowed to hunt. Well of course most will die by the age of 10. How long would we last if we lived off of McDonalds and powdered supplements. There is no need to supplement more than once a week if they are fed properly.

Personally, I do things differently than most and honestly I have seen the difference.
I use UVB for all my reptiles, (yes including my leo's). I have mostly focused on rehabilitation and rehoming, but I also have my own. I only feed crickets gutloaded with this http://www.mazuri.com/PDF/5M38.pdf . No dusting necessary. Because I use UVB I only use calcium with D once a week, if that. MV's only once a week. I only feed crickets, silkworms, phoenix worms, hornworms and a few roaches a week.

It has worked great for me. My main leo is 9 and thank god has never had any health issues. All labs come back within normal limits and she has also checked his bone density and she told me he looks great. My point is it can be done without the excess fat and oversupplementing. It saddens me to see so many geckos dying young. I just wish some people will realize that just because they look healthy on the outside does not mean they truly are.

Okay enough said:biggrin:

Multivitamins along with Ca+D3 all work together and are required at the same time to work properly within the digestion process. Supplementing on a schedule allows for lulls and peaks in the nutritional intake of your animals.

This can be thought of very much like one would think of providing yourself with a diet low in calcium and supplementing the weeks worth of calcium every Friday. It simply does not work that way, most of the calcium taken on that day will go to waste, and the same goes for all other supplemented vitamins and minerals.

Each and every vitamin and mineral depends on proper quantities (ratios) to function properly and be of use to the animal that consumes them; in simple terms a shortage of one limits the uptake of another.

Much research has gone into how vitamins and minerals interact with each other, while most of this has been based on human nutrition the knowledge is translatable to animals as the chemistry of digestion and utilization does not differ in any substantial way.

Geckos have evolved to deal with lulls in food availability to some extent, but it cannot be said that this evolutionary feature has allowed the typical gecko to survive 20 years in the wild, more than likely they survive to produce a generation or two at best prior to being prey themselves. While this ability is nice, and comes to our advantage with making their care less critical than it is for the typical mammal that cannot survive a week without food and water, it also comes at a cost. This ability to survive times of famine and store fat in times of feast makes it rather difficult to determine exactly what feeding event or series of events lead to issues such as gout.

Gout is the excessive accumulation of uric acid around joints which is secondary to loss of uric acid excretion ability, which often comes along with fatty liver disease. Over feeding can cause an animal to become overly fat, lack of exercise is but a contributing factor, both are preventable at the owner care level. Hereditary predisposition to gout is not preventable or treatable, and in the case of leopard geckos, quite frankly going to be more often seen because of the whole inbreeding that is required to maintain a given line of morphs. (There is not a single breeder that selects breeding pairs based on longevity and genetic health history)

I do not like the product you have mentioned, while it does contain the proper levels of calcium required to modify the Ca ratio of crickets, I will not feed my insects bound to be feeders any product that’s first ingredient is corn (20.1% or more of the diet as a whole), second ingredient calcium carbonate (20% minimum of the whole diet by weight to produce the stated 8% calcium level), the entire diet contains less than 1/4 of one percent vitamin and mineral mix by weight which I believe is why you have a need to supplement with a multivitamin mixture.

In any case, longevity of a gecko depends mainly on the owner’s willingness to provide proper care, and the owners ability to identify nutritional needs based on experience, advice from experienced owners of the species in question, personal experience and knowledge, lab results, or some combination of the above.

Isolated cases of gout in animals fed roaches without clearly repeatable results under similar conditions are not cause for alarm to the entire population of enthusiasts who are not reporting similar issues. I have been breeding and feeding roaches for 10+ years now which is a fraction of the time roaches have been used in the industry as feeders. I cannot attribute a single loss in my collection to gout let alone gout secondary to feeding roaches or even roaches fed on cat or dog food which I did use as a food in the beginning of owning them.

It is always somewhat frustrating when an owner truly believes that they are doing the right thing when in fact they are not. I some cases it is a matter of complicating something well beyond what is needed, such as complex supplementing schedules, and fussing over exact nutrient values of their insect feeders when they have no idea how to determine what values are more or less acceptable for their particular situation.

Maurice Pudlo

 

[cricket4u]

Sounds like you're referring mostly to leo owners. Most of us here on GU are far beyond leos and work with much more advanced species that require far greater care and knowledge than leos. Not that I have anything against leos. But they're in general a beginner species and that's why you see less than adequate husbandry with many leos.

In this particular case, yes. I have to keep in mind that this section is for all species:lol: Actually my favorite reptiles are monitor lizards which I have owned.

 

[cricket4u]

Just to clarify, by no means do I believe any method is perfect. I was just sharing information that was passed on to me by my reptiles vet. I am fully aware that nutrition varies among species and we do the best we can with the limited amount of data available. I am also aware that multivitamins along with Ca+D3 all work together However in speaking with several veterinarians it's obvious that oversupplementing is a growing concern. I understand certain insects lack nutrients, but if the gutload has multivitamins and D3 in it, why add more by dusting at EVERY feeding? Aside from plain calcium of course. This is something I fail to grasp.

Sorry OP, this post started with roaches and it's heading off topic

 

[Ozymandias]

Lol no problem just keep going this stuff is good

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Just to clarify, by no means do I believe any method is perfect. I was just sharing information that was passed on to me by my reptiles vet. I am fully aware that nutrition varies among species and we do the best we can with the limited amount of data available. I am also aware that multivitamins along with Ca+D3 all work together However in speaking with several veterinarians it's obvious that oversupplementing is a growing concern. I understand certain insects lack nutrients, but if the gutload has multivitamins and D3 in it, why add more by dusting at EVERY feeding? Aside from plain calcium of course. This is something I fail to grasp.

Sorry OP, this post started with roaches and it's heading off topic

It is definitely NOT recommended to lightly dust with either multivitamins and/or calcium with D3 at EACH feeding. D3 can be overdosed. Of course, that depends on how often you feed! Some current thinking on that is to lightly dust the feeders 2-3x per week to correct the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in our feeders because often insects are naturally balanced with too much phosphorus! We aim to provide a 1.5-2.0 ratio of calcium-to-phosphorus. Our aim is to tweak the balance.

It has been years since anyone has recommended using tropical fish flakes to any insect gutload. Some people still use dog and cat food. As you say, that is terrible because of high protein and high fat content.

Even then, some people totally focus on phosphorus-free calcium with D3 and use a general multivitamin formulation quite sparingly. D3 is required for the metabolism of calcium. Any phosphorus interferes with the absorption of calcium!

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Just thought this may be helpful to some. I am thinking of emailing him to see exactly what he uses for gutload.

Dog and cat food, chicken feed, oatmeal and even fish food have been traditionally used as gutload but they are all aimed at different animal species, not reptiles. Oatmeal doesn’t provide a good balance of nutrition and the other feeds listed tend to be high in protein which can lead to renal problems in reptiles.


What exactly is gutloading?

cricket4u ~

Have you found this GU sticky post by Maurice: http://www.geckosunlimited.com/comm...rition/49403-feeder-insect-diets-gutload.html and his link http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ which will check out nearly every food!

In a more recent thread Maurice has recommended using the General Mills dry cereal Whole Grain TOTAL as a partial gutload.

 

[cricket4u]

cricket4u ~

Have you found this GU sticky post by Maurice: http://www.geckosunlimited.com/comm...rition/49403-feeder-insect-diets-gutload.html and his link http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search/ which will check out nearly every food!

In a more recent thread Maurice has recommended using the General Mills dry cereal Whole Grain TOTAL as a partial gutload.

Yes, thanks. Being a bit anal retentive I don't feel comfortable mixing anything myself and not knowing the values. I do appreciate it and think it's really nice of him to share that. I might be giving this product a try. I have heard good things about it, of course I am no bug nutrition expert.

Repashy Bug Burger 5.3oz Jar

Also I just ran into this post a few minutes ago. Has anyone heard anything regarding this? Look at the letter toward the end of the page.

what suplements to use? - Gecko Resource Forums

 

[billewicz]

I've been very happy with the Rapashy gutload and calcium plus powders for our 300+ geckos.

Michael

 

[Elizabeth Freer]

Yes, thanks. Being a bit anal retentive I don't feel comfortable mixing anything myself and not knowing the values. I do appreciate it and think it's really nice of him to share that. I might be giving this product a try. I have heard good things about it, of course I am no bug nutrition expert.

Repashy Bug Burger 5.3oz Jar

Also I just ran into this post a few minutes ago. Has anyone heard anything regarding this? Look at the letter toward the end of the page.

what suplements to use? - Gecko Resource Forums

Don't know about the Bug Burger. Just sent Andrew an e-mail regarding his recommendations against RepCal phosphorus-free calcium with D3 to see whether the vet Dr. Dzanis has any updated research on this issue.

 

[cricket4u]

Don't know about the Bug Burger. Just sent Andrew an e-mail regarding his recommendations against RepCal phosphorus-free calcium with D3 to see whether the vet Dr. Dzanis has any updated research on this issue.

Well I am glad this roach post headed that direction which initiated my search. What a disturbing find especially since there has been so many undiagnosed deaths. I have spoken to so many people and have found many stories which peaked my interest. Unfortunately very few have necropsies done. I use Repcal myself, but as I mentioned only once or twice a week depending on the insects I'm feeding. I would think we should have heard about this by someone if it was a problem, but who knows.

 

[docwade87]

I've been very happy with the Rapashy gutload and calcium plus powders for our 300+ geckos.

Michael

Agreed!! Allen Repashy has done wonders in creating outstanding foods for geckos esp. Rhacodactylus and has done it all based on nutritional value on years of studying. I have been using most of his stuff since day one and have never heard of or had an issue myself.

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

It is definitely NOT recommended to lightly dust with either multivitamins and/or calcium with D3 at EACH feeding. D3 can be overdosed. Of course, that depends on how often you feed! Some current thinking on that is to lightly dust the feeders 2-3x per week to correct the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio in our feeders because often insects are naturally balanced with too much phosphorus! We aim to provide a 1.5-2.0 ratio of calcium-to-phosphorus. Our aim is to tweak the balance.

It has been years since anyone has recommended using tropical fish flakes to any insect gutload. Some people still use dog and cat food. As you say, that is terrible because of high protein and high fat content.

Even then, some people totally focus on phosphorus-free calcium with D3 and use a general multivitamin formulation quite sparingly. D3 is required for the metabolism of calcium. Any phosphorus interferes with the absorption of calcium!

I lightly dust with Ca+D3 at every feeding Elizabeth, and have done so for years and years on end with zero issues. I find some support with Mr. Repashy suggesting a similar dusting method using his own Calcium Plus product which is 35% calcium (min) and 20k IU vitamin D per pound.

For every gram of phosphorous consumed an equal portion of calcium will be used, this calcium will be sourced from the diet if it exists there or it will be stripped from storage. In the case where a gecko does not have access to free calcium to consume it must look toward internal reserves, bone!

Most insects contain far more phosphorous than calcium; in the wild geckos have access to a far greater variety of feeder types and will seek out feeders that fill the nutritional need of additional calcium (just like we crave one particular meal over another).

Lightly dusting at every insect meal provides this correction without the need to seek out feeders that have an excess of calcium rather that a shortage to do the job for us.

We can on the other hand feed our insects very high doses of calcium for 12-24 hours prior to feeding them off to make the adjustment internally. This method is tried and requires 8% elemental calcium in the insect diet to work properly.

There are a number of symptoms of low blood calcium levels which may go unnoticed include; muscle cramps and general irritation.

When the blood calcium levels are very low you are likely to note your geckos having tremors, but you might miss the irregular heart beat and confusion your gecko is experiencing.

While I do realize that vitamin D3 can be overdosed, I have also maintained that I prefer to use the ZooMed calcium dust which is much lower in total D3 than less refined calcium products. On a slight side note; I wish the Repashy products would move to the precipitated calcium it is a better form of calcium than the mined form he uses.

Yes, thanks. Being a bit anal retentive I don't feel comfortable mixing anything myself and not knowing the values. I do appreciate it and think it's really nice of him to share that. I might be giving this product a try. I have heard good things about it, of course I am no bug nutrition expert.

Repashy Bug Burger 5.3oz Jar

Also I just ran into this post a few minutes ago. Has anyone heard anything regarding this? Look at the letter toward the end of the page.

what suplements to use? - Gecko Resource Forums

We all have differing comfort levels with what we do, be that driving a car to feeding our animals. I do suggest you take a look at the "USDA nutrient database" if you are unsure of any foods nutrient levels, it is kept fairly up to date and serves nearly every food manufacturer as the go to source for creating nutritional lableing.

The bug burger product is interesting in that it is designed to provide hydration and nutrition all in one package, where I believe it fails is in allowing the insects to self regulate intake of dry matter vs. fluids. There are differences in nutritional needs/desires between males and females of most feeder insects, when forced to consume a diet that is identical; one, the other, or both are not getting what they need. A dry diet combined with an offering of plain water gel along with fruit and/or vegetable for hydration allows the insects to self correct their intake to a much higher degree.

In very general terms, feeder insects need to be fed well, and hydrated well in order for them to be worth anything as feeders. Roaches, what this thread is all about, are about the same as crickets in so far as if you don't keep them well they aren't worth much as feeders. But when you are spending a bit of time watching your colony and caring for it, feeding them, watering them, you know loving on them as you do your other critters ... yeah, ok, thats was a bit much but you get the idea; they will be a great feeder right along side others. While it does matter what you feed them, dog and cat food are not great or even good options, it is mostly important that you do it. Far more newcomers believe the pet shop did the job for them that exist new gecko owners who just know it is a good idea to feed their insects well for a few days prior to offering them to their pets.

Ok it's 3:43AM my time, I have to be up in 2 hours, I'll let it go with whatever is typed above, I hope it is somewhat clear.

Maurice Pudlo

 

[cricket4u]

But when you are spending a bit of time watching your colony and caring for it, feeding them, watering them, you know loving on them as you do your other critters ...

Agree 100%. I am looked upon as weird for this. I always offer water gels aside of gutload regardless of what I use. I am fairly new here and don't know anyone's background. You could have mentioned you sell gutload for feeders:lol:

 

[cricket4u]

Oh, I see. You only sell it locally.

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

cricket4u you have a PM.

I'd like to add a few roach breeding suggestions to this thread.

Our Breeding Bins

A) Sex ratio; 1:4 is about as optimal as it gets in most cases.
B) Litter numbers follow a bell curve, smaller at first then increasing to a peak after which numbers fall off again.
C) Food consumption is highest while the insects are growing, adults are stable in how much food they will intake.

We like to cull colonies once they are about 30 days past their peak production point, the cost of feeding them becomes higher than their value to us as breeders, and their nutritional value is as high as it will ever be without reducing our production numbers.

Our method of making this happen is simple in concept but a lot more involved than some might want to put into roach breeding, never the less I will offer it to you for your review and you may decide to run with it.

1) We pull first run nymphs to replace our breeders later, we figure 2.5 times as many nymphs as our colonies hold females is enough to replace the entire colony.

2) We remove all nymphs from our colonies on a monthly basis, this allows us to monitor production of each colony, at this same time we replace the males with younger males, the older males are used as feeders.

3) We sex nymphs once they reach 3/4 inches in length, males and females are separated by sex at this point, at this point any roaches that are not developing as fast as their counterparts are culled.

4) Once the first run nymph females are mature we cull the parent colony, fully sterilize the bin, and create a fresh colony, mixing our fresh females with sub 30 day old males.

Daily) Food, water crystals, fruit and vegetable plates are cleaned and filled.

Weekly) We clean weekly, monitor the colony for pest infiltration, and remove and replace any lost breeders. Record that days total feed consumption.

Monthly) We track bin production by weight because counting is a time consuming operation with no real return that is better than total weight.

Every 6 Months) We compile our data on bin production, food consumption, and heating costs. Evaluate production trends, decide if dietary needs should be adjusted and if production should be increased or reduced to match our demand for feeders over the next 6 months.

Yearly) We use our roach production data with our animal production data to evaluate total cost and return ratios, this point is where we also decide if there is a need to make any adjustments to our feeding and or supplementing methods.

Adjustments to or feeding and supplementing methods are the most complex thing we do, our preference is to maintain the insect feeders on a diet that supports the bulk of the nutritional needs of our animals, adjusting the diets is possible, adjusting the quantity of insects fed to our animals is possible, adjusting the dusting quantity and type is possible, adjusting the gut load we use is possible, the list goes on. We keep a ton of information and use the same veterinarian which is willing to work with us to meet our goals, she is wonderful and invaluable. Our evaluation is based on production numbers and blood work taken from our high, low, and average producers, and our vets assessment of their state of health. This information is looked at alongside last years information and any changes we made, improvements are noted and methods that achieved them are identified so they can become a regular part of our operation. Lack of improvement or reductions in performance are identified as well with this method.

In the overall scope of this we hope to do the best for our animals, its a bit costly at times but I know we have still saved money in the long run vs. purchasing feeder insects from outside vendors. Our daily feeder insect usage averages 11,000 per day, that would cost us a great deal more than what we put into our current feeder insect colonies even including the cost of the vet checks we have done to evaluate how everything is going​

Our Holding Bins

Our holding bins are mixed sex, but sized by age (we pull monthly). They are treated similarly to breeding bins with the exception that we do not worry about their production, if it happens great, if not fine too.

1) Our animals are fed roaches we pulled the day prior, once feeding is completed we pull the next days feeders and place them in gut load or feeder bins.

Our Feeder Bins

Our feeder bins are no different than our breeding or holding bins in design, we simply use these bins to insure the next days feeders are ready to go.

Our Gut Load Bins

Our gut load bins are "A COLOR OTHER THAN RED" so there is no way to miss them, any insect that goes into the gut load bin is fed a high calcium diet and comes out nutritionally different than those in the feeder bins. In most cases we use this method when feeding gravid females, in a few cases we use this method when feeding picky critters that do not take well to dusted insects.

We use one other type of diet as well; we refer to it as Color Plus;

Our Color Plus Bins

Our color plus bins are "red" so we have no way of missing the difference in these insects which are loaded with carotenoids via their special diet. We use these diets mainly for insects that will be fed to animals we have identified that can use those special ingredients to produce outstanding coloration.

Over the span of many years we have developed this method and expect to continue it well into the future, it is serving us very well and with any luck will continue to do so. I hope it will cast a bit of light on the subject of how we do things here at Maurice's Exotic Pets and just maybe help someone out that is looking to improve their own insect breeding operation.

Maurice Pudlo

 

[Riverside Reptiles]

Hey Maurice, I'd like to know what you have found for the best method of sorting roaches is? It's fairly easy if you have a small colony. But, when you have thousands of roaches, not quite as easy. I'm curious as to your method by size, but I'm really even more curious how you sort large numbers of roaches by sex? It seems like that would be very tedious work.

 

[MauricesExoticPets]

This mainly only applies to dubia, discoids, and hissers ...

I bring up pandora on my phone, tune in lords of acid or something similar, and sit down with a nice stiff drink and go to work sexing and culling out any that are not up to size.

They are usually all pretty close in size anyway with the regularity I pull them out so I do not use the bucket drilled with holes method, plus doing so is uncool to pregnant female adults with otheca protruding from their abdomen.

I'm pretty quick at it, but it is time consuming work, I only bother to do this with the breeding bin replacement roaches not the holding bin roaches unless I need to pull gravid females out for feeding larger underweight rescued lizards and monitors which need a higher calorie diet to put on weight.

The cool thing about roaches is that they develop slower than crickets and over the span of a month size difference is not giant, I tend to feed on the small side or select feeder insect species based on adult size for our animals. Most of our stuff will take either turks or lobsters as adults when they are adults themselves. A smaller portion of our animals will consume the larger roaches I am speaking of here, never the less I am chunking out around 1000 larger roaches a day to the monitors in addition to their other prey items such as rodents, birds, fish, crustations, and the odd case of frog legs I just can't seem to pass up once or twice a year (yummy).

For the smaller roaches mass rearing seems to work fine with the bucket method of sorting every month, there is more loss and no real way to sex them out with any cost effective method I know of. But doing so every month still puts the holding bin roaches in very similar size ranges over the growing period.

Maurice Pudlo

 

[cricket4u]

thanks, figured this would help alot of people on here

Hi,

I found one of my old notebooks(my memory can only store but so much) in which I had wrote something about roaches. I did not write the source, but if I wrote it in this book it's at least 90% accurate. Of course if anyone wants to chime in if they are aware of this it will be great.

Eublaberus distani are not good feeders because they are high in fat.
Feeder roaches in general lack linoleic acid which is a form of essential fatty acids known to lower triglycerides. The amino acid requirements for reptiles are unknown.

Well that is all I had written and just to clarify I am unaware if that is a huge problem or not. Just sharing information

 

[daggekko]

I wish I had read this before making roach food. Anyhow, wanted some sort of opinions, although I realize that I probably will be throwing the chow I just made out.

I made a simple chow. I mixed it based on volume.
10% chicken laying mash
20% wheat bran
40% rabbit food
30% dog food.

I plan to use this type of food as a daily diet along with some variety of fresh fruits and/or veggies.

As far as the dog food goes, my dog let me use some of her food. I get a better quality dog food. Not the cheap junk.

As far as the chicken food goes, I'll have to look at the bag to see if it is medicated or not.(stupid me I should've looked before I got it)

Basic question is, would the experts here see this as somewhat of a decent diet for the Dubia roaches or should I start over?

If this is needed, I keep mainly Phelsuma and feed Repashy MRP's and home made fruit puree mixes. I also use Repashy's Cal+ on the insects(which currently I am using crickets{until my roach colony gets big enough})

I'm a bit tired and feel lost after all the %'s of fats and carbs and protein. Thanks in advance and I will not be upset if you really think this diet is terrible. I am asking to get more knowledge!:biggrin:

 

[billewicz]

I'm not picky and I might get chastised for this but if they will eat it, feed it to them. Once you are out of that mix, start them on the 'perfect' ratio foods as detailed previously.

Once they have been on this a while, they'll be just fine for feeding to your reptiles. Or, if you need feeders sooner, than pull a group and switch their food for a week.

Enjoy.