Finding B. Lateralis in the Raleigh area

[Matthew]

I have just one T. I would like to feed it primarily B lateralis roaches for a handful of reasons. I have been unable (so far) to find a pet shop in my area that sells these. Only having one T I don't need to keep a ton on hand so I am not interested in keeping a colony of them. I just want to buy a handful every s often to as I need them. Buying online isn't going to work as everywhere I look the shipping costs more than the roaches themselves.

Is anyone else on the board from the Raleigh, NC area and if so do you know of anywhere in the Triangle area that these feeder roaches can be purchased?

 

[Tortoise Tom]

What a dilemma…

If you don't find anyone near you, its really not all that hard to keep a small colony of them going. This will also make life easier as you add more and more tarantulas to your collection too, because everyone reading knows you can have just one tarantula... And maybe you'll end up getting other insectivores too so you have something to do with the surplus. I feed them to my fish, and I have several tame local lizards around my house the will come take them from my hand.

 

[MassExodus]

Unfortunately the world hasn't progressed enough to find lats at a pet shop, unless you're really lucky. Dubia, sometimes, and hissers, but never lats. Online is the only place I've ever seen them for sale.

 

[Tortoise Tom]

Unfortunately the world hasn't progressed enough to find lats at a pet shop, unless you're really lucky. Dubia, sometimes, and hissers, but never lats. Online is the only place I've ever seen them for sale.

This is true. For 10 years I've been trying to give away my surplus and the local pet shops have had no interest in any of them, even for free. Finally, a few of them have caught on to the whole dubia thing and I have a couple people that take those from me, but man, I've never had such a hard time giving away something so valuable.

The funny thing, funny to me anyway, is that Blatta lateralis occurs here in a feral state. Don't know how they got here, but I've seen them running around my ranch for more than 20 years every night as I go around and shut the tortoise doors. When I started getting into roaches, I decided to catch a few, put them in a bin and make a colony. I caught about 2 dozen "wild" ones to start with. I did that 10 years ago and I've been feeding their offspring to any and all insectivores for a decade now.

I did the same thing with Blatta orientalis too. Went back to the neighborhood where I grew up and caught a bunch of wild ones and made a colony out of them. They were a little skunky smelling, and I really didn't need them since I had all the other ones, so I fed them all out after a couple of years.

 

[PanzoN88]

I would recommend buying some more tarantulas to surpass shipping costs, that way if you end up with multiple roaches, you'll have plenty of mouths to feed.

 

[MassExodus]

This is true. For 10 years I've been trying to give away my surplus and the local pet shops have had no interest in any of them, even for free. Finally, a few of them have caught on to the whole dubia thing and I have a couple people that take those from me, but man, I've never had such a hard time giving away something so valuable.

The funny thing, funny to me anyway, is that Blatta lateralis occurs here in a feral state. Don't know how they got here, but I've seen them running around my ranch for more than 20 years every night as I go around and shut the tortoise doors. When I started getting into roaches, I decided to catch a few, put them in a bin and make a colony. I caught about 2 dozen "wild" ones to start with. I did that 10 years ago and I've been feeding their offspring to any and all insectivores for a decade now.

I did the same thing with Blatta orientalis too. Went back to the neighborhood where I grew up and caught a bunch of wild ones and made a colony out of them. They were a little skunky smelling, and I really didn't need them since I had all the other ones, so I fed them all out after a couple of years.

If I remember correctly, they said lateralis started there, coming in on ships, and is now prolific all across the south to Texas, probably to Florida by now, Im sure. I see them outside here, not alot though, and infestations seem to be rare. I live in the country and work in a small town though. Wouldn't live in a city..