Roaches - vegies

[LookinRound]

For the vegetables for the roaches, are the greens I feed the beardies fine? I was feeding the greens to the crickets I've had and they started dieing quicker as it was (most likely) essentially gut loading them with toxic calcium levels for the crickets. I just wanted to make sure you haven't had any problems with feeding any greens to the roaches. Are there any foods that have been bad for the roaches in your experience?

 

[ayiaskepi]

What you feed to your roaches, you feed to your beardie. Look at it that way. In my experience dubies eat anything!

 

[techdave]

I always fed them butternut squash and naval oranges. They would devour them.

 

[zooeymama]

I feed these things to my roaches and they love them: cores from apples/pears (the pick them clean leaving behind seeds and the ghost of the core. amazed even my hubs how clean they pick them!), orange/mandarin slices, salad greens (collards, mustard, turnip, dandelion- sometimes the occasional chard and romaine too), carrot chunks, squash of all kinds- cooked and raw.

 

[jewl495]

I think your crickets were most likely sick. There is a virus that has put many cricket farms out of business. You can feed your roaches the left over greens and rest assured they will only eat what they need.

 

[LookinRound]

I think your crickets were most likely sick. There is a virus that has put many cricket farms out of business. You can feed your roaches the left over greens and rest assured they will only eat what they need.

I had been purchasing from the same place for over 3 months and no problems with them. As soon as I stopped the crickets were living longer again. It was just the batches I was feeding the greens. The place I was buying from didn't report any die-off when I contacted them either.

 

[Paradon]

Maybe you had a sudden temperature drop. Sometimes, if it gets too cold, that can kill them.

Can you describe how you were you keeping the crickets? Did you have any heat source?

 

[LookinRound]

Maybe you had a sudden temperature drop. Sometimes, if it gets too cold, that can kill them.

Can you describe how you were you keeping the crickets? Did you have any heat source?

Well, initially I was thinking it was due to them being cold, so I added 2 lights to heat them which got the heat up, but it was too high so I added lower wattage lights which kept the temperature great. They continued to not live long (new order). At this point I contacted the company at which point they said it was due to the calcium contents in the plants.

 

[jewl495]

I guess that it's possible then. I would have assumed crickets would prefer to eat their gutload over any greens. Did you provide other water sources for them? Do you remember the color of the crickets that died? Hum :?

Well i can say my experience with feeding greens to my roaches is that they will only eat them as they need them.

 

[LookinRound]

I guess that it's possible then. I would have assumed crickets would prefer to eat their gutload over any greens. Did you provide other water sources for them? Do you remember the color of the crickets that died? Hum :?

Well i can say my experience with feeding greens to my roaches is that they will only eat them as they need them.

The crickets definitely would devour the greens. In essence from what I was being told by the company they were getting too much calcium which thus means it was gut loading them. The term gutloading is being used on the forums inaccurately. If you are truly gutloading them then you are giving them toxic levels of the calcium, thus calcium toxicosis, this would then kill them. When people feed their crickets a nutritious diet they are in fact giving them a good diet. Gut loading is something you give them that last day to give them 'extra' for the lizards to consume. The reason you give them extra is because they just ate it and it's in their guts basically.

I don't remember the exact color of the crickets that died. I don't really remember it being different from normal though. They have a waterer that is never empty, and they can't drown in it either.

 

[Paradon]

I've never heard of crickets OD from too much calcium that they get from eating greens and hard veggies. Did you by any chance sprinkle the supplements, calcium and multivitamins, on the greens itself? Too much calcium does clog them up...