Roach chow ingredients?

I am ordering my first roach colony next week and I went ahead and made my own chow.. Taking different ingredients I saw people use on YouTube .. I am just not sure what ratio of Ingrdients I should use.. Here are the ingredients I used.. If anyone had any comments please let me know.. I am wondering if this is a good healthy chow to gutload my Dubias with...

4 lbs dry dog food
2 lbs natural dry oats
1 box of Special K cereal
1/2 box of honey nut Cheerios
3 Oz of goldfish flakes

I'm sure it would be gobbled up by the colony but I wouldn't use it as a gutload for feeders. Depending on how fortified the cereals are grains tend to be high in phosphorus as does fish food. The end result being that your bugs aren't as "gutloaded" with nutrient dense or calcium rich foods as they could be. Not to say it wouldn't be fine for the breeding colony or as part of a diet including fresh food as well.

I feed my roaches exclusivly on produce (either that the dragon doesn't eat or that I get on sale in the overstock/ugly shelf).

Thanks Tater.. I just finished an article describing how roaches fed a high protein diet may be the cause of some reptiles developing gout .. I posted the article for anyone who hasn't seen it... What I'm seeing more and more is that many people have healthy thriving colonies without the use of roach chow..

Juce23":1wucr8mx said:

Thanks Tater.. I just finished an article describing how roaches fed a high protein diet may be the cause of some reptiles developing gout .. I posted the article for anyone who hasn't seen it... What I'm seeing more and more is that many people have healthy thriving colonies without the use of roach chow..

Click to expand...

Yeah, I Allens article is pretty good. Even if dubia don't have the same uric acid storage mode as the studied roaches they really do just fine without all that stuff and it's way easier.

If you stay on top of it you don't need to mess with water crystals either. Which while polyacrilamide is considered basically safe, depending on age, quality and manufacturing process can be sources of neurotoxic acrylamide. I can't say how big a risk it poses but I've stoped using them and not had a problem with dehydrated bugs.

I don't have a problem feeding my colony things like cereal, grains or even small bits of meat (leftover pinky mice from my snake) from time or when I'm out of veggies. There are a few studies iut here as well showing that roaches will self select food for nutrient density depending on age and life state too.

So as far as getting the water that they need, I'm assuming that they can get that from the veggies that they eat? I am planning on using leftover scraps from what I don't use for my dragon( collard green stocks and leaves, yellow squash, green beans) , as well as the occasional baby carrots,bananas and orange slices that I plan on using.. I think I may also grind up an oat and alfalfa mixture to give them some variety.. I also read that regular iceburgh lettuce would be fine because the roaches are able to metabolize the lettuce in ways that dragons cannot making it much more nutritious to them..

I think in general the problem with iceberg lettuce is that it's is high on moisture and fiber and relatively low in nutrition. I think for bugs it would make a fine food/moisture source. Mine like iceberg and romain better than greens like collards - I suspect is the calcium content but that's just a pet theory. They love sweet things, especially apples + citrus.