Anyone need roaches?

Captive care and husbandry.

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Kfen
Posts: 413
Joined: June 17th, 2010, 5:51 am
Location: CT

Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kfen »

I have way too many dubia roaches at the moment. I have an adult colony of 10 males and 30 females and a few hundred small nymphs from just born to about 3/4". If someone wants to paypal me $20 to cover shipping/box etc they are yours.
Kfen
Posts: 413
Joined: June 17th, 2010, 5:51 am
Location: CT

Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kfen »

These have been spoken for.
stlouisdude
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Joined: June 7th, 2010, 8:30 pm
Location: St Louis, MO / Hartford, CT

Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by stlouisdude »

I have dozens of adults if anyone missed out on Kfen's offer.
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Kelly Mc
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Joined: October 18th, 2011, 1:03 pm

Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kelly Mc »

Just a little share, Im actually stalling just a few minutes before I tackle my dubia bin its due.

But if anybody raises these, and finds an overabundance of nymphs or smalls inconvenient i thought i would share a way to use them up. It works for all of the terrestrial lizards and geckos ive tried, calyptratus and actually started with box turtles.

So I keep a shallow dish with smooth sides in the environment and put a little pile of thawed dubia in it with a couple live ones to catch a cue. It can help to give a few of the thawed a rupture, too. Hungry animal is triggered by the circling live guys in the bowl and, appetite stimulated, eats the pile of thawed ones in the dish. Often the live ones in the bowl no longer become a necessity after a few feedings.

For say, a lizard or gecko that usually eats 1 or 2 med lg dubia, they will readily eat perhaps a half teaspoon of smalls. Its not to replace their usual feedings but a handy way to use up an overabundance of nymphs one may sometimes encounter, that sometimes get in the way of cleaning. Just pour them in a ziplock and freeze.

Again I have found it works across a broad variety of taxa, especially if they are ruptured. The same done with crickets with minor modification because of better agility of the initial "teasers"
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chris_mcmartin
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Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by chris_mcmartin »

Kelly Mc wrote:Just a little share, Im actually stalling just a few minutes before I tackle my dubia bin its due.

But if anybody raises these, and finds an overabundance of nymphs or smalls inconvenient i thought i would share a way to use them up. It works for all of the terrestrial lizards and geckos ive tried, calyptratus and actually started with box turtles.
Fascinating; I never would've thought of mixing in F/T dubia with live. I don't have that problem (of too many small ones); I primarily raise my dubia for my small lizards and all they can handle are very small ones--I usually get too many adults (though I do feed them off to my box turtles periodically).
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Kelly Mc
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Joined: October 18th, 2011, 1:03 pm

Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kelly Mc »

Hi Chris I started doing this with crickets, and found some advantages. If you try it with your guys especially the Coleonyx I bet they respond like little leopard geckos. I have an album of thawed insect feeding pics with leos but seeing Coleonyx do it would be much more interesting to people probably.

there is no danger of them 'getting lazy' and developing a preference for thawed, they will always be triggered by live movement, but it is interesting to see how they have the capacity to recognize still prey and olfactory cues.
Kfen
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Joined: June 17th, 2010, 5:51 am
Location: CT

Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kfen »

I never even thought to freeze them. Is it really just as simple as putting live ones in a bag and then into the freezer? How long will they keep for, same as any other meat product?
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Kelly Mc
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Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kelly Mc »

I use a seal-a-meal these past couple years to eliminate freezer burn but do the freezing in a zip lock. I put paper towel in the ziplock for them they crawl into the folds and expire.

If you use the zip lock to store press out as much air as possible between uses. freezer burn is harmless but seems to affect the appeal.

Its easy to tell if a frozen food animal of any type has become rancid or freezer burned, tissues will be dry, pithy, and animals with significant fat content that becomes rancid will have a familiar scent to stale oils and fats we have all smelled before.

When in doubt - throw it out.
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Kelly Mc
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Joined: October 18th, 2011, 1:03 pm

Re: Anyone need roaches?

Post by Kelly Mc »

Some of the most interestingly unexpected taxa to take to this were the curly tailed lizards my little display couple would produce, and a sceloporus that a lady found on the sidewalk at a street fair (odd i know).

I used to sell them in packs of 4, 10, 20 in various sizes for mostly leos and bearded dragons. It has some ease of management advantages in certain circumstances, one of my favorites is freedom of substrata materials choice.
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