Gromphadorhina Portentosa (hisser) as a Feeder

Is it possible for an adult-sized hisser (Gromphadorhina Portentosa) to potentially cause any fang or other related damage to any decently-sized adult tarantula (e.g. a ~6.75" L. Parahybana)? I noticed they have quite a hard shell, is this roach species reserved just for the "beastly" 10"+ specimens? Also, is the general nutritional-content of this roach at all marginally larger than that of a B. Dubia?
Thanks!

I wouldn't feed hissers to any T's whatsoever unless they are freshly molted. So you'd have to be keeping a close eye on them in that case. And obviously they'd be reserved for larger species.

It's too bad their shell is as hard as it is because it could provide as a great regular feeder for jumbo sized T's like T blondi & apophysis, P ornata & rufilata, anything Lasidora... IF it was softer.

As far as nutritional facts go, check this out:

http://www.doubleds.org/newfeederpg.html

Bottom line is the differences aren't very big in the grand scheme of things, so no.

My personal opinion on roaches, take it or leave it is this... I rank them in this order:

1 lobster
2 lateralis
3 dubia

Lobster as #1 for several reasons. Given an 80 degree room and the right amount of food/water, they will thrive. Very easy to tong feed, especially as adults. You can easily grab their wings and not even have to touch them in the process of corralling one to feed to a T, all the while, the roach's legs are squirming and the roach is literally screaming (sometimes- they really do) in front of your T. If it's hungry, it's gonna eat it. The best tong feeder by far. Also the notion that they're a PITA because they are climbers is easily null and void by a thin layer of vaseline. Game over. Only drawbacks to this roach is they do have a slight odor to them (it won't escape the container) and are opportunistic burrowers, but will come out to roam eventually.

2- Lateralis is good because they will not burrow at all. Much like crickets, they will always be on the surface. They'll sometimes hide behind stuff, but will come out eventually. They breed fast with enough heat, but will require humidity for the egg casings to hatchout. The males tend to eat the hatchouts from the egg casings too if food is not immediately available so it's good to provide variety to stimulate them (ie- oranges, carrots, etc.). The con with this species is that if they get out it's not going to be good for your house and could suffer an infestation.

3- Dubias are kind of like the 3rd step in this course in my opinion because if your tarantula is big enough for it and you have gotten them used to being tong fed, the big ole adult dubia is where it's at. Their babies and nymphs are useless though and only good to feed to slings if you pre-kill them as they WILL burrow and will not come out for fear of their life.

That's my take. Hope it helps.

sure, they work great. BUT i would definitely prekill them. with adults i would not only prekill them, but leave them staked out until they full expired. just a headcrush leaves them too able to defend themselves, still



as for the hard shell... yeah, not a problem. they just eat around the protunum (the most hard/armored part) and treat the rest like normal cricket shell. the one thing to watch out for, cuz of that big piece of hard shell there is generally going to be a little bit of leftover digestible material on the bolus, so you do need to remove it more or less as soon as they are done.



i extensively used subadults and a few of my older adults as feeders when i had a booming hisser colony

Great info, thanks!

My G pulchra devour them, they are about 2.5" and I give them 1-1.5" juveniles. The food bolus looks no different than that of a cricket bolus, just slightly larger. They seem to devour nearly all of the roach. I use juveniles and sub-adults for feeders. Anything that makes it to adult escapes the threat of predation and becoms a breeder.

My T's have never struggled to eat them. But they are entirely too slow growing and slow to breed to be a reliable feeder.

Scoolman said:

My G pulchra devour them, they are about 2.5" and I give them 1-1.5" juveniles. The food bolus looks no different than that of a cricket bolus, just slightly larger. They seem to devour nearly all of the roach. I use juveniles and sub-adults for feeders. Anything that makes it to adult escapes the threat of predation and becoms a breeder.

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Do you subdue/prekill the roach before feeding larger specimens? I'm mainly interested in this species due to its size, but the hard shell/possible defense features seem to just point to another, different variety of feeder instead of this one.

kylecchh said:

Do you subdue/prekill the roach before feeding larger specimens? I'm mainly interested in this species due to its size, but the hard shell/possible defense features seem to just point to another, different variety of feeder instead of this one.

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I remove the heads of nymphs for my 1/4" A metallicas, the nymphs are bigger than they are. Everyone else gets live. The only defense mechanism I have noticed is the arching of the abdomen, which seems to stump one of my GBBs but s/he always goes back in with gusto and just crushes the roach. My A mets have been living with a nymph for over week now, and the roach just goes about business cleaning up the sub.
As for slow growth, they birth every two months, and are fully mature in six months. Happyhissers.com has a great deal on a starter colony.
The "hard" exo does not seem to be a problem at all. Like i said before the bolus is no bigger than that of a comparable cricket.

The baby nymphs tend to be very soft and good for feeding slings. As for adults/sub adults for my larger tarantulas i usually slit the thorax a good ways to disorient them and feed them to my tarantulas. I've been feeding my lp and even my smaller species such as my obt and gbbs and have never had a fang issue. There are way better feeders out there though. If you want a larger sized feeder i would go with discoids.

Alright, thanks for the info! I'll probably go with this species, considering the majority of my specimens are quite large in size and will hopefully manage the shell just fine.