Roach Food

Anyone ever find enjoyment out of trying to find healthy roach food? I got creative and made about 100 lbs of roach food last week. I used half wheat bran, the other half consisted of:
(All these were powdered in coffee grinder)

Chicken mash
Bird seed
Pellet parrot food
Pea protein powder
Chick Pea flower
Rabbit food
Powdered Orange juice
Bee pollen
Oatmeal
Flax seed meal
Kelp meal

I feed it wet with orange juice at oatmeal consistency. I know I don't need to do any of this, but I'm having fun.
Any other suggestions for ingredients?
I don't want to use animal proteins...it causes gout. Plant proteins are not converted to uric acid.

You sir should breed and sale roaches lol. You would undoubtedly have the highest quality insects on the market.

You could maybe throw in some collard greens? Maybe it would add to their calcium content

Haha...I do sell some, they just don't sell as well as they breed
I thought about kale chips powdered in the coffee grinder. It was a bit too expensive to make a substantial amount of it. I may add fish meal, I bought the organic kelp meal at the hydroponic plant store, they had fish meal there as well. I buy organic OMRI certified products to avoid possible heavy metal contamination. I like Slayer and all, but I don't want mercury in my roach food

Rankins":26zelm5i said:

Haha...I do sell some, they just don't sell as well as they breed
I thought about kale chips powdered in the coffee grinder. It was a bit too expensive to make a substantial amount of it. I may add fish meal, I bought the organic kelp meal at the hydroponic plant store, they had fish meal there as well. I buy organic OMRI certified products to avoid possible heavy metal contamination. I like Slayer and all, but I don't want mercury in my roach food

Click to expand...

You sir, played that one well, kudos to you

Do you have more info on plant proteins not converting to uric acid?

Tater we went through this before. But yes, I can repost my info if you want. It will take awhile.
Here are the basics...purines (animal proteins) convert to uric acid. Plant proteins are not purines, legumes contain some but it is not a significant source. Look up a gout diet for further info. I have been a nurse for 26 years...I'm certain of my info
If I'm mistaken, I have been mistaken every since getting out of nursing school.

Let me rephrase my question then - to specifically address cockroach metabolism since the topic at hand is gutloads. (The other information you shared about alfalfa was indeed interesting).... Are plant proteins/nitrogen unable to break down to uric acid at all, does this mostly apply to human metabolism?

The reason I ask is as you know cockroaches are noted for having mechanisms to convert portion/nitrogen into uric acid for storage and back into nitrogen. Typiclally roaches ar pretty opotinistic and I know mine will eagerly eat animal protien along with the plant based diet they usually get. So it raises the question to me of are hey also able to utilize the protien in plants? I haven't had a chance to dig into articles too deeply but one notes "at very high levels of protien or a diet consisting if cellulose the fat body may become overloaded by urate stores" so it keeps me thinking.

The idea that plant vs. animal protien may have different levels of effect is interesting. It will be an good jumping off point for more research.

I seriously doubt nitrogen would turn food item that contain zero purines into purines. Yes, my info is related to human diets.
Nitrogen converts to ammonia if I remember correctly. That is the reason I stopped giving mine so much alfalfa. My roach bin started to stink bad of ammonia. The smell isn't there since I reduced the amount of alfalfa in the diet.