Set up your own feeder roach colony

Cockroaches. Filthy insects that carry diseases, infest homes, are unsanitary, and just plain disgusting. Right? Wrong!

Most cockroach species are not pests, despite popular belief. They can actually make interesting pets. But I'm not here to tell you how to keep pet roaches. I'm going to tell you how to set up a colony of roaches to feed to your reptiles, fish, and inverts.

Why? Simple. Feeder roaches have taken the herp hobby by storm over the past couple of years.The species of roach I will be talking about is Blaptica dubia, or the Guyana Orange-Spotted Roach. They are an all around better feeder than crickets, as the below chart shows:

Crickets
-Can jump
-Can chew through some plastic
-Smell bad
-Noisy
-Hard to catch if they escape

Roaches
-Can't climb smooth glass/plastic
-Can't fly
-Can't jump
-Don't make noise
-Don't have much of a smell (unless you put your head right over the container)
-Larger
-Easier to breed
-More nutrients
-Fairly slow, and so easy to catch if they happen to escape (which is very unlikely)

Still not so sure? There are plenty of resources on the internet that will say the same thing. Should you decide to keep a colony of roaches, your pets will love you forever.

Step 1 Materials

Roaches aren't too demanding about their containers, but there are some important things you should consider like space, hiding places, food, water, humidity, and temperature.

Materials
-A plastic or glass container
-A piece of cloth/mesh/netting
-A reptile heating pad
-Lots of hiding places (egg crate, toilet paper rolls, small boxes, crumpled newspaper, etc.)
-Hot glue gun
-Knife

Comments

[nhoj2891]

A quick hint for a lot of insect species that could possibly get out is to put a 1" thick band of vasoline or any other petroleum jelly around the top of the container as a barrier that they would be unable to cross.

[Ziegbod]

Good guide, im hopefully going to be writing my own roach colony guide and tarantula keeping.