But what do the Dubias eat?

tbrandt

Arachnosquire
Joined
Oct 11, 2014
Messages
79
Greetings,

I am looking for advice what you feel the best diet for B. Dubia roaches intended to be used as nutritious food for tarantulas. Please share your personal preferences on what you feed you Dubias. I know that there are other threads that touch on this, but I am looking for a fresh perspective to clear up a few misconceptions.

Fresh fruit and vegetables? Lots of people seem to feed fruits and vegetables, but people have expressed concern over pesticides used on store bought fruit. Whats the recommendation here? Washing ok, certain fruits ok? Thanks.

Cat/Dog food? For some reason, unknown to me, some folks are concerned about animal protein. Any explination would be appreciated.

Flunker's Orange Cubes?
Something else?

What our tarantulas food eats impacts their health. Any personal preferences offered with explanations will be appreciated.
 
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eldondominicano

Arachnobaron
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
421
Greetings,

I am looking for advice what you feel the best diet for B. Dubia roaches intended to be used as nutritious food for tarantulas. Please share your personal preferences on what you feed you Dubias.

Fresh fruit and vegetables? Some people have expressed concern over pesticides used on store bought fruit.
Cat/Dog food? For some reason, unknown to me, some folks are concerned about animal protein. Any explination would be appreciated.
Flunker's Orange Cubes?
Something else?

What our tarantulas food eats impacts their health. Any personal preferences offered with explanations will be appreciated.
I feed mine variations, calcium fortified cricket food, dog food, the good kind(of course I have dogs so its not an extra financial burden), fruits. I have heard that cat food is great. Not sure which kind though.
 

EulersK

Arachnonomicon
Staff member
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Feb 22, 2013
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3,292
I've only had my colony for a few months, so take this with many grains of salt. I simply picked up a large, cheap bag of oat grain cereal, the knockoff version of Honey Bunches of Oats. Threw in some dog food, blended it, done. They love the stuff, eat it right up, and they're definitely reproducing/molting/etc. I also throw in varying fruits about once a week.
 

14pokies

Arachnoprince
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Oct 25, 2014
Messages
1,735
There roaches they will eat just about anything! I don't have a colony at the moment but when I was keeping monitors and crocodilians I had a nice colony going..
I gave mine whatever was laying around old produce and fruit, just rince it in cold water.
Crushed Dry cat or dog food works great and was the bulk of what I offered...
I also would toss them whatever cereal was laying around that wasn't overly sugary and for some reason I always have instant oatmeal in my house...I have no clue where it comes from because I hate the stuff!!! It just appears so I fed that pretty often as well..
Vary there diet its best for them and your ts...
 

ratluvr76

Arachnodemon
Active Member
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Jul 12, 2014
Messages
759
A couple of people I know use chicken feed from the local feed store. I made my own home made "roach chow" I used steel cut oats as the base and added wheat germ, bran flakes, quinoa, corn meal and fish flakes. Ground that all up in a food processor and that forms the bulk of their diet. Every three days or so I toss in a generous handful of kitten food for protein. They need protein for reproduction. And then every 3 or 4 days I also put in some citrus fruit. I've heard the citrus fruit stimulates breeding. Also, fresh greens like kale or raw spinach. When you use produce only leave it in for a maximum 24 hours or you will have fruit flies. I also leave some of the frass when I clean the colony out. The baby roaches eat the frass.

My roaches love their cat food. When I put it in I often see roaches carrying pieces of the cat food around LOL.
 

mmfh

Arachnobaron
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Jun 14, 2010
Messages
345
.I have no clue where it comes from because I hate the stuff!!! It just appears so I fed that pretty often as well..

Lolol 14pokies. I wish I had miraculously appearing anything!
 

just1moreT

Arachnobaron
Old Timer
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Jun 1, 2009
Messages
435
Mine do well on Apple's and oranges and ground upped floating catfish food, just use the blender works good, also feed my crickets on ground catfish food live good on it, of course I do have a catfish pond and buy the stuff in 50lb bag ,not sure what all sizes it comes in
 

eldondominicano

Arachnobaron
Joined
Dec 8, 2014
Messages
421
Mine do well on Apple's and oranges and ground upped floating catfish food, just use the blender works good, also feed my crickets on ground catfish food live good on it, of course I do have a catfish pond and buy the stuff in 50lb bag ,not sure what all sizes it comes in
This is helpful for me too
 

Graeboe

Arachnoknight
Joined
Oct 28, 2014
Messages
164
It all is a balance of what you want to spend and feed them. I get a big bag of roach chow from some of the places I buy my roaches from. Mix it with dog food and fruits or veggies once a week to make sure they get any vitamins they might be missing to pass on
 

David VB

Arachnosquire
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Jan 21, 2014
Messages
79
I give them any leftovers from fruits and vegetables and also some blended cat food. Only the too watery stuff like tomatoes i don't use. They eat just about anything, like 14pokies already mentioned.
 

pyro fiend

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Dec 29, 2013
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I use whatever dog foods on sale for my roaches and male rodents as well as hog chow, i tried chicken mash once seemed ok but my local stores never have it on hand.. they also get random fruits like today bananas was on sale $0.19/lb.. so guess who bought 10lb of bananas? Lmao (most super green and my rodents love them as well as my dogs.. )

I like 14 poecs have random accuring items apear.. like instant oatmeal, but only the fruit kind... never the maple, cinimon etc or even plain.. a random mango oatmeal or something pops up, noone eats it and noone has a clue where it came from. Last week it was weat germ and powdered potatos that showed up.. i didnt use the potatos but thought about it.. again no clue how it got here... week befor some blue rasberry jam/jelly (dk which) showed up... so one collony got some jam and hog chow lol... literally one collony gets table scraps ^.^ they arnt roaches when they arnt on the chopping block, they are garbage disposals lmao! They eat whatever you want them too lol
 
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Experiment397

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Nov 19, 2010
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14
I've heard citrus makes them breed faster from other people with colonies. So mine get a diet of mainly oranges and pineapple with a healthy mix of whatever leftover veggies I have from making meals and any bruised apples or bananas I find since I usually get them in bulk and have a few bruised or sorry looking ones. I never feed mine straight dog food. I crush it up and roll a banana in it. Also if you have any lettuce that wilts they will go crazy over it
 

Tomoran

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Nov 11, 2013
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We feed ours a combination dry "roach chow" we make by blending whole oats and dry fish food together (we get the big canisters of both at Walmart) and fresh fruits and vegetables. They seem to particularly like mangos, apples, and oranges, but they'll eat anything.
 

tbrandt

Arachnosquire
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Oct 11, 2014
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Thank you for all the replies.

No one has mentioned any concerns about pesticides re: fresh fruit and vegetables. Has anyone every experienced any problems with pesticides on strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, any berries or fruit, being transferred through the guts of roaches to hurting their tarantulas?

Thanks.

Josh
 

just1moreT

Arachnobaron
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Jun 1, 2009
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I have never experienced any problems with feeding roaches or crickets, that I have fed fruit to,to my T's, I guess there is always a possibility but I'm thinking it would be slim,I think if there was very much pesticides in the roaches food might kill them first.
 

oooo35980

Arachnosquire
Joined
Jan 20, 2014
Messages
61
I was wearing out my blender with cat food, so I just switched to fish flakes, no need to blend. Other than that just oranges. I also keep an el cheapo heating pad in there, they're always under it and breed ridiculously fast.
 

tbrandt

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Oct 11, 2014
Messages
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I have never experienced any problems with feeding roaches or crickets, that I have fed fruit to,to my T's, I guess there is always a possibility but I'm thinking it would be slim,I think if there was very much pesticides in the roaches food might kill them first.
Cool, thanks Just1moreT.
 

Poec54

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Mar 26, 2013
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They're roaches, they will eat just about anything!
Are you sure? I thought roaches were picky eaters and very delicate. Almost impossible to keep alive and infestations are almost unheard of. That's why they're almost unknown in New York City, and rare in the SE part of the US, so rare in fact that I'm surprised there's hundreds of companies that specialize in exterminating them. How do they stay in business?

(14pokies: no charge for correcting the spelling and punctuation in your quote. It's included as part of my service).
 

Ellenantula

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I have b lats, but can't imagine it's not the same for dubias. I only feed organic lettuces, apples, carrots and potatoes. I feed Iams cat food (the Iams is not organic) and for pinheads I grind up the cat food using my old blade coffee grinder (I upgraded to a burr grinder for my own coffee). My elderly parents live a few doors down, and they have gotten into organic foods (Dad just turned 80 last month) and so Mom is buying organic whole wheat which she grinds herself to make whole wheat bread -- Mom saves me a slice of the bread for my b lats, crix and even the beetles/mealworms adore it. I admit I have given them Cheerios before though.
Truth is, people don't need to be ingesting insecticides either, imo. Nor GMO. I believe the further up the food chain you go, the more concentrated those toxins get. But I'll get off that soapbox.....
 
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