Has anyone used rabbit alfalfa pellets for dubia roaches?

While I still have an enormous amount of Quaker oats I keep in their bin at all times, and the roaches get some vegetable scraps and/or fruit every day I still want to offer them nutritional feed.

I had bought InsectFuel by Arcadia to add to the Quaker oats. Since it is alfalfa based and alfalfa is a staple healthy green for beardies. Alfalfa is hard to find in non-hay form for my beardie. Then I thought of rabbit pellets made from alfalfa.

I'm sure it varies by brands, but the better brands I looked up had a general nutritional value of: Crude Protein (min) 6.0%, Crude Fat (min) 2.0%, Crude Fiber (max) 32.0%, Moisture (max) 12.0%, Calcium (min) 0.25%, Calcium (max) 0.75%. I was also impressed that rabbit pellets have a generally okay Ca ratio, found a good breakdown of many brands here http://www.therabbithouse.com/diet/rabbit-food-comparison.asp

Whereas the InsectFuel alfalfa has nutritional values of: Crude Protein (16%), Crude Fats & Oils (4%), Crude Fibers (19%), Moisture (<8%). There are other micronutrients from ingredients besides the alfalfa that makes the InsectFuel still an amazing choice to add to roach food that rabbit pellets wouldn't have.

I haven't done anything yet! Still researching. I would avoid any brands that have soybeans or corn as ingredients, those seems like questionable choices for the purpose of a roach colony that will feed a bearded dragon. Maybe rabbit pellets and oats and InsectFuel together would be a big win for roaches. My one unhappy point with the Quaker oats are how they are grown...if I can do anything good for my beardie and roaches and avoid the evils of a major corporation I would like to try that.

DorgEndo":2my1z9h9 said:

Alfalfa is hard to find in non-hay form for my beardie.

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Did you try looking for the sprouts I mentioned in the other thread?

I think that would be fine. The 6% protein is already high enough. I've been experimenting with lower protein diets for my colony (around 4%) and breeding is going well, and babies are growing well.

So, giving them a lower protein diet that still allows enough protein for growth and breeding, should minimize the amount of uric acid the roaches have, and thus, the amount of uric acid our dragons will eat.

-Brandon

Yep, that has been brought up before. The supplemental food for roaches tend to be high in protein. The InsectFuel has added protein powder to it. That prompted me to think of how I could get alfalfa without the added protein, which turned into looking at rabbit pellets as an alfalfa feeding source that would work for roaches. Oats are lower protein still and nutritional.

I want the healthiest roaches. Plus any crickets I get also get gut loaded with this same mix.

The base of my roach chow is ground up oats, with a fortified cereal added for vitamins/minerals.

My point was I don't think you need to cut the alfalfa with the insectfuel; the alfalfa alone has enough protein in it.

-Brandon

Claudiusx":15zzv879 said:

The base of my roach chow is ground up oats, with a fortified cereal added for vitamins/minerals.

My point was I don't think you need to cut the alfalfa with the insectfuel; the alfalfa alone has enough protein in it.

-Brandon

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Fair point on not having the add InsectFuel to another alfalfa product. Since I already got a small 50 gram pack I will still utilize it while I have it.

The next step is to get a small amount of rabbit pellets to see if the roaches will eat them. I don't anticipate any problems as they eat the rolled oats well enough.

One thing with the powdered alfalfa supplement is that it is hard to track how much gets eaten versus how much gets walked over and the roaches spread it amongst the frass at the bottom. With a pellet alfalfa I think I can be more confident that the roaches are fully eating the alfalfa. I may be overly paranoid in my worry, lol

-April

I make mine a semi-fine powder and find that it gets eaten well. even if it gets tracked into the frass, the babies seem to be able to pick it out and eat it still. Otherwise my frass would be a ot lighter colored haha.
I always prefered it ground semi fine anyways to make it easier for the babies to eat, but i'm sure they wouldn't have any problem with larger pellets. Just my preference.

-Brandon

I missed if either of you mentioned possible additives in pellets. When we had guinea pigs, pellets often contained added vitamin C (as guinea pigs--like humans--don't mfr their own, so need it from dietary sources). When we had a rabbit (the one from Monty Python's Holy Grail :roll: ) we also had to be aware of what else might be in the rabbit pellets.

If you're covered there... 8) Just sayin', check your labels. :study:

That is something I'm aware of MrSpectrum. Not just ingredients to keep it as simple as possible but no additives. Some brands have D3 in them, some of that in the gut of the insect would transfer over to the Beardie.

Like I said, 8)
Perhaps others reading this weren't/aren't aware of that. :wink: