Dubia roaches and flies

Just wanted to know if any of you have kept dubia roaches and blue bottle flies as feeders, I'm going to try and vary the diets but I want to be safe before feeding anything to my bugs.

First off, what do you feed your roaches to keep them healthy? Where do you keep them? Have you had any problems with them? Do they need to be gutloaded first first? How many days after gutloading can I use them? Same questions for blue bottles, I know flies are short lived but I want anyone's advise on how to keep them alive as long as possible please. I honestly hate roaches but I want to be able to give them a variety of foods. 

I actually was able to snag 100 dubias from the local repticon!

They eat fruits and veggies (usually fresh)

You want to stay away from high protein diets as it makes them release toxins that other insects / reptiles don't tolerate well usually. (cat / dog food is not good to feed them)

They breed at high heat, but will tolerate room temperature

An egg crate set up similar to crickets to climb on will due, will a layer of Vaseline around the rim of the container so they cant crawl out.

IF dubias escape they populate so I advise caution  

its good to keep them outdoors, as a lot of people can develop allergies to them out of nowhere.

Hope this basic info helps! -

P.S I work on a computer for bing.com... so I float around a lot of forums, I reply to posts kind of fast lol!

@Mantis_M thanks! Haha, I like quick responses, it's one of this socially awkward things to respond right away, but I never found it weird. I always respond to texts almost immediately but that's cuz I'm already on my phone, why wouldn't I respond right away? Thanks again for the tips, I like the idea of keeping them outside, I really do hate roaches. 

Hey, I wrote this blog post about basic care for blue bottle flies (flying insects in general), and to help people get over their initial reservations about using them for feeders. Check it out, I think it should address at least some of your questions.

https://www.panterrapets.com/blogs/news/tips-and-tricks-to-prevent-flying-insect-escapees-at-feeding-time

@Sarah K Wow thanks! Yeah very helpful! I'll have to buy some flies from you now, I really need some.

@crabbypattyget the order in today, and i will ship tomorrow!

@Sarah K thanks I just put in an order  :clap:

I am getting some tommrow but only like 3 at a time. Haha dad dosent want me getting a bunch.

Mantis_M said:

I actually was able to snag 100 dubias from the local repticon!

They eat fruits and veggies (usually fresh)

You want to stay away from high protein diets as it makes them release toxins that other insects / reptiles don't tolerate well usually. (cat / dog food is not good to feed them)

They breed at high heat, but will tolerate room temperature

An egg crate set up similar to crickets to climb on will due, will a layer of Vaseline around the rim of the container so they cant crawl out.

IF dubias escape they populate so I advise caution  

its good to keep them outdoors, as a lot of people can develop allergies to them out of nowhere.

Hope this basic info helps! -

P.S I work on a computer for bing.com... so I float around a lot of forums, I reply to posts kind of fast lol!

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@Mantis_M What does feeding dog food to your roaches do?  I have some feeder roaches, no babies yet as the colony is just starting, but I feed mine some dog food and fish pellets. That is in general what I know to feed them. Along with fruits of course. But I don't want to harm my mantises by feeding them high protein diets if they can harm them. I haven't heard of protein being a problem with roaches before, most places say feed your roaches fruits and some protein, (Dog, cat, and fish food or whatever), as they need it in their diets. So what is best to feed them if not protein?

How do you know that protein diets are bad for roaches that eat them? I want to be safe and feed my mantises best I can. So if protein isn't something that should be in the roaches diet I would like to know.

Thanks.

Mystymantis said:

@Mantis_M What does feeding dog food to your roaches do?  I have some feeder roaches, no babies yet as the colony is just starting, but I feed mine some dog food and fish pellets. That is in general what I know to feed them. Along with fruits of course. But I don't want to harm my mantises by feeding them high protein diets if they can harm them. I haven't heard of protein being a problem with roaches before, most places say feed your roaches fruits and some protein, (Dog, cat, and fish food or whatever), as they need it in their diets. So what is best to feed them if not protein?

How do you know that protein diets are bad for roaches that eat them? I want to be safe and feed my mantises best I can. So if protein isn't something that should be in the roaches diet I would like to know.

Thanks.

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unfortunately havent done the scientific research. I heard that if you feed DUBIAS specifically high protein that it makes them release toxins that are possibly harmful to other wild life. They also produce some airborne kind of thing, that makes people start becoming allergic out of seemingly nowhere. I am not a scientist, just a dude. I take things for granted when read on the internet, so i dont blame you for taking my advice with a little doubt. I would hate for it to be true, but its just what i heard

Passing around  "I heard or I read" can really cause many problems for those new to any hobby. Particularly with out a reference to check.

Never believe any thing on the net unless you know the source and trust the source.

Mantis_M said:

unfortunately havent done the scientific research. I heard that if you feed DUBIAS specifically high protein that it makes them release toxins that are possibly harmful to other wild life. They also produce some airborne kind of thing, that makes people start becoming allergic out of seemingly nowhere. I am not a scientist, just a dude. I take things for granted when read on the internet, so i dont blame you for taking my advice with a little doubt. I would hate for it to be true, but its just what i heard

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Why not check around before spreading what may be untrue negative advice?  Many new keepers are here to get good info. to better care for a new and unusual insect. It is hard enough to figure out how best to do this.

--------Gets off soap-box and calms down a bit------been an interesting few days for me. LOL  2 days ago a new neighbor threatened to kill me. I understand why but it is based on false negative information he received 2nd hand. Planting a negative untruth can be as bad as pulling the trigger in some cases. Other times, it causes unneeded worry and pain.

My apologies for rant.

im fairly sure my advice is accurate .. i said i didnt do the scientific research. youre going off the deep end pal

Zeppy44 said:

Passing around  "I heard or I read" can really cause many problems for those new to any hobby. Particularly with out a reference to check.

Never believe any thing on the net unless you know the source and trust the source.

Why not check around before spreading what may be untrue negative advice?  Many new keepers are here to get good info. to better care for a new and unusual insect. It is hard enough to figure out how best to do this.

--------Gets off soap-box and calms down a bit------been an interesting few days for me. LOL  2 days ago a new neighbor threatened to kill me. I understand why but it is based on false negative information he received 2nd hand. Planting a negative untruth can be as bad as pulling the trigger in some cases. Other times, it causes unneeded worry and pain.

My apologies for rant.

Click to expand...

Aye! Was deep end.  Why I apologized .

Zeppy44 said:

Aye! Was deep end.  Why I apologized .

Click to expand...

Were all friends here, so no worries man

 -id never intentionally spread advice i felt was negative in any way. All of my advice is recommendation  

I kept dubias for my Chinese mantis last year and they loved them. I bought about 50 mediums from my local pet store. They were kept in a black plastic tote with small holes around the top of the container for airflow. I never tried feeding the roaches dog food but instead fed them carrots, apples, oranges, bananas, and whole grain cereal. You really have to make sure to not leave food in there too long as it will start to mold really fast. I used toilet rolls and paper towel rolls for them to climb around in which also made it easy to clean the tote. I kept them in a dark quiet part of my place so that I didn't disturb them much except to feed off a couple. One of the problems I never really considered was things getting into the container instead of something getting out. Fruit flies inside will make your roommate(s) unhappy with you. I promise

I haven't tried bb flies but if they're anything like house flies they should be pretty easy. I left a couple pupae in each mantids enclosure and in a day or two they'd hatch. The rest I kept in a deli container in the fridge. 

I can't speak to gut loading as I have no experience with any of that.

Best of luck to you! 

I feed house flies mostly. Keep in dorm style frig in my room.  Works great for me. Another few weeks I will be feeding from nature. Love living in rural beef cattle and horse area. Lot of wild bugs around and almost no one uses pesticides around here.

Gut loading is mainly to get vitamins and minerals (like calcium) for bone building. Not needed with mantis.

On discussion of protein in roaches, a study has been done that found too high of a protein diet could kill roaches. The study wasn't done on Dubias specifically. What was found is that the roaches were not able to pass excess uric acid, which is a byproduct of consuming protein. While nymphs need a certain amount for growth in adults the excess uric acid build up far outweighed their need and resulted in the adults dying very prematurely. There is a theory that is this high build up of uric acid in roaches could potentially be why gout has been a problem for some reptiles in the pet trade. Now there are some roaches that have been shown to be able to pass excess uric acid but unless something new has been done nothing has been specifically tested on dubias so many have a better safe than sorry approach.

Even good quality dog food is still lower than the extreme amount of protein that was used in the original test that caused the really massive die out. If you are feeding a well balanced diet with other vegetables, fruit, and grains I wouldn't be worried about also offering some dog food. I've noticed in my roaches that they seem to be well aware of what their bodies need and naturally gravitate toward that food source as long as a variety is offered to them. I often find the nymphs swarming the food with larger protein quantities while my adults favor fruits and veggies.

I'm not sure how high concentrations of uric acid in prey could potentially effect mantises. Praying mantises can pass uric acid, but I personally wouldn't want to feed roaches that were consuming lethal doses of protein precentages in their diet.

@Zeppy44 wow I'm sorry that happened to you, I've been threatened to be killed  as well, but I work in a pharmacy and I get all kinds of things said to me. On the roaches, I'm glad that got cleared up. I do know that people can develop allergies to them so I will be keeping any I get outside. I've seen patients develop severe breathing problems and rashes due to roach infestations, it won't get that crazy but I've developed allergies to certain detergents so I'm not gonna risk it. Hopefully everyone has a great day today! I know how it is to have negative things thrown at you, but I really really try not to let them get me down ?❤