dubia roach colony questions

[MassExodus]

I've been reading about people using styrofoam egg cartons, they swear by them..going to try that next time I change out my dubia. The fact that they jump on water quicker than food leads me to believe it could only be beneficial to keep giving it to them. I think the styro will be good for retaining little pools of water for the babies to drink from. They seem to like it even more than the adults.

 

[Scoolman]

Very bad idea. The roaches will ingest the styrofoam. This will lead all sorts of complications. They dont "jump" on food because it is always available, so no need to gobble it up. But free form water is a rare treat so they grab what they can when thy can.

 

[MassExodus]

Why would they eat styrofoam...!? You've seen this?

 

[Scoolman]

I have no idea why they do it but they do. Perhaps they like the taste. Yes I have seen it first hand.

 

[kormath]

Why would they eat styrofoam...!? You've seen this?

Probably the same reason this damn cleaning crew I wasted money on is eating through my cardboard egg crates.

I have read you can feed them off to your smaller lizards/frogs etc. So the beetle larvae shouldn't harm a T right?

 

[swimbait]

I have no idea why they do it but they do. Perhaps they like the taste. Yes I have seen it first hand.

Does said Styrofoam disappear? Or are they just chewing on it and carving out a spot? On of my pcambridgeis chewed a 1/4" notch in the cork bark so it could get through. Witnessed it grinding away at the bark with its fangs several times

 

[Scoolman]

As far as I can tell they ingested it.
As for the paper egg cartons, those can be digested by roaches, and your cleaning crew with no harm.

 

[Steve123]

Maybe you guys have just found a way to make styrofoam biodegradable. I've read of bacteria that decompose the polyacrylamide used to make those water-absorbant gels some hobbyists use. Who knows the limits of the Dubia's gut?

 

[Scoolman]

Wouldnt that be cool. Unfortunately, it backs up their digestive track and kills them. Large animals, (lizards, rodents, snakes) eating them will invariably suffer the same fate. Fortunately tatantulas cant ingest the foam in the roaches gut, but they will absorb the toxic chemicals which were stored in the fat cells of the roach.

 

[RedCapTrio]

Don't you guys think that B. lats are too fast and too skinny to be feeders for Ts? I mean it takes lots of energy to chase them down then one roach is never enough since it lacks bulk.

 

[swimbait]

Don't you guys think that B. lats are too fast and too skinny to be feeders for Ts? I mean it takes lots of energy to chase them down then one roach is never enough since it lacks bulk.

Shouldn't if they are gutloaded. I don't have a colony of them but have worked with them before and I wouldn't say they lack bulk necessarily. Sure dubia are much thicker but that added bulk is why I suspect some of my T's won't eat them. Also shouldn't take to much energy for your T, I have never seen a T have to chase something around for very long.

 

[kormath]

Don't you guys think that B. lats are too fast and too skinny to be feeders for Ts? I mean it takes lots of energy to chase them down then one roach is never enough since it lacks bulk.

Nope. None of my Ts hunt them down. They'll wait for the lats to race by and pounce on them. Sometimes it takes a few tries if the roaches are really fast. Or they'll just ignore them and the lats will settle down and creep around the enclosure exploring, and then they get tackled.

 

[MassExodus]

Lateralis are perfect for small to mid size tarantulas in my opinion, but for larger ones they're inefficient, dubia are the way to go. Despite what people say about their spiders not liking dubia, I've found them to be almost the perfect feeder. They come in all sizes, cant climb walls, breed very well and fatten up quite nicely. They're also not very fast, and easy to handle and maintain. I've had a few spiders balk at them...a few weeks later, the hungry spiders only hesitated a second to take them. After that, they took them as quick as the others. Our tarantulas are spoiled, which is alright but stop stuffing prey in their faces for awhile and let them get their appetite back... see how quickly the picky eating is forgotten. And like I said, once you get them eating dubia, they like them. Just my two cents

 

[swimbait]

Only thing I despise about dubia is how fast they burrow! If they aren't burrowing they are sitting dead still lol Most of the time if I'm confident the spider will eat, I crush their heads and put them in. Stops them from burrowing but they still squirm

 

[MassExodus]

Yup, and it's easy enough to do that and not worry about it anymore. I don't bother squishing heads for adults. Which means I find live roaches occasionally, living near the water dish.