This care sheet was created based on experience breeding several species of roaches. Roaches covered include B. dubia, B. discoidalis and B. lateralis. Click here to see a video on B. dubia and here for a video on B. lateralis. B. dubia roaches make great feeders for bearded dragons and various other reptiles and inverts. B. lateralis are a great alternative to crickets, about the same size. We feed them to tarantula slings and juveniles and are great for scopions of all sizes. We also breed B. discoildalis (discoids) which are similar to the B. dubia. Roaches have a greater meat to shell ratio, very little chitin and double the prorein of crickets. Overall better feeder.
All 3 of these species of roaches mentioned above can be kept similar way. There all non climbing/flying, live up to 24 months, range in sizes from 1″ to about 2½” as adults. Eat the same thing, need low-moderate humidity and high temps for breeding. Most important, they aren’t known to infest your home in the US, with the exception of Fl. where most are illegal to have, due to state law and they thrive in tropical conditions.
Temperature: 75-95 degrees (DO NOT DROP BELOW 68°F)
Humidity: Moderate 30-55% (Assures healthy molts)
SETTING UP YOUR ROACH COLONY!
You will need a Sterilite or Rubbermaid storage bin or something similar. 20 qt. – 55 gallon bins, depending on size of roach colony you plan on maintaining/breeding. Make sure that you get one that is a solid dark color. Do not use clear ones as they tend to let too much light into the roach colony. Since roaches are nocturnal and won’t mind living in the dark.
Cut a hole in the lid, about 8 x 8 on one end or a couple 2″ holes on the sides/ends if your going to stack the bins. This can be done by means of heavy duty scissors, utility knife or a drill hole bit. Please DO NOT let young kids attempt or do this step as it could result in serious injury.
OK, you’ve got your hole(s) cut, now you’re ready to glue some aluminum screen mesh over them for ventilation. Screen door mesh that you buy at your local hardware store works well since most feeder roaches cannot chew through it, but B. lateralis new borns could squeeze through. So be careful not to lean any egg flats against the screen. Cut your screen mesh a little bigger than the hole(s) you cut and glue it on with a hot glue gun. If you don’t have a hot glue gun, the hot glue sticks work just as well warming up the tip over a candle and applying it thoroughly around the edges. Take extra precautions when using an open flame and hot glue, can cause burns if mishandled or misused.
DO NOT use any substrate of any kind. Roaches make there own in the form of there feces, which is called “frass”. It may sound gross, but they also consume it as food, especially as babies. So if you forget to feed them one day, not to worry, there covered. B. dubia and Discoids are burrowers, so if you were to use substrate, it would make collecting your roaches for feeding and cleaning out your bins that much harder. So leave the substrate out. B. lateralis do not burrow, but are very fast.
Next, your going to need to put some egg crates/flats/cartons into your newly ventilated roach bin. You’ve seen egg cartons, right, well an egg crate/flat is one you would get when buying eggs in bulk. They measure 12 x 12 and hold 30 eggs. These work the best. Place them vertically, starting on one end or one side of the bin. You’ll need anywhere from a couple to whatever you can fit comfortably allowing room for food and water gel. Leaning them instead of stacking them allows the roaches easy access to hide and for there waste (frass) to drop to the bottom of the bin for easier cleanup. Leaning or stacking both work.
Now that you have the main essentials, provide your roaches with a couple shallow dishes or lids of high protein roach chow and water gel. The roach chow can be bought or made. Make sure you have roach chow available to your roaches all the time. There are many different recipes on the Internet, just do search and make what appeals to you. There roaches, there not to picky. But importantly, what you feed them, your feeding your reptiles and inverts. A good high protein cat/dog food with some fish flakes and mixed oats works too.
Water gel is must for keeping your roaches hydrated and helps humidity levels, important for molting. Water gel is made from dry water crystals. Water crystals are a water absorbing polymer that expands over 400%. You can purchase water crystals here or a other places on the Internet. Making water gel is eay. Just add 1 oz. (6 teaspoons) of water crystals into a gallon container, add water, and let sit for about 8 hours. Your roaches can crawl on in and around the water gel without drowning. Don’t put an open dish of water in either, unless you want to drown your newly acquired roaches, especially young roach nymphs. Don’t use sponges or cotton balls, they can harbor bacteria and mold, which is deadly, and you risk wiping out entire roach colony. Roaches will desiccate quickly without some source of moisture.
Other foods and water sources! Fruits and vegetables (whole or scraps) should be offered a couple times a week. Be sure to clean out what hasn’t been eaten within 48 hours to avoid fruit flies, ants or an outbreak of mold. Our roach colonies really enjoy oranges (roach viagra), carrots and bananas (peal and all). Additionally fruits and vegetables offer another great source of hydration and extra nutrition.
Heating your roach bin! Temperature, most IMPORTANT. Most feeder roach species come from tropical environments, so you need to keep there temps between 80-92 degrees. The reasons for keeping your temps up is simply, health/survival and breeding purposes. Roaches are very active at higher temps and less productive at lower temps. So, the higher the temps (don’t exceed 95°F), the faster they breed, eat better, and grow quicker. To heat your roach bins, get an under tank heater (uth) or a heating pad that DOES NOT SHUT OFF AUTOMATICALLY and place on one end of your roach bin. Safety precaution, hook up to a thermostat to control temps and prevent a fire hazard or other mishap. Those heating pads can get HOT.
Humidity is also important to your roaches to help promote healthy molting. Roaches need to molt in order to grow to become adults. A freshly molted roach will appear cream color and darken within 24 hours. Humidity can be obtained by keeping temps up, ventilation along with a full dish of water gel at the bottom of there bin on the warm side. Humidity should be around 30%-50% which will be adequate for most species of feeder roaches. As lond as your roaches are molting and growing, your humidity and temps are good. If you start losing roaches or see really mangled wings, then double check your setup and make adjustments.
Final step, add your roaches and enjoy!
Roaches are so easy to maintain. Depending on the size of your roach colony, maintenance only needs to done every 3-6 months (not like crickets, every other day). To clean your roach bin, take out the roaches, egg flats and all, food and water dishes, etc. Put them in another bin. After you have remove all the live roaches from the bin, you could dump the frass and extra debri in your garden or compost or just flush it down the toilet. Wash and scrub out the bin and add roaches back in. Wear rubber gloves when cleaning and wash up thoroughly when finished.
Personally, roaches are so much easier to raise and breed than crickets. No odor, no noise, very little maintenance, more nutritous, easier to handle and feed. How many roaches do you start with? That depends on what you’re feeding. Start a colony with at least 100 roaches. The more you start with, the quicker your colony will grow. The feeder roaches discussed in this care sheet, take from 3-5 months from birth to mature adults. Once matured they will live up to another 18 months on average. Adult B. dubia and B. discoidalis females produce 20-30 live nymphs about evey 45 days, give or take. So, if your not in a hurry, you could start out with nymphs (baby to sub adult). In a hurry, start with larger nymphs and several pair of adults. B. lateralis are egg laying. Eggs hatch between 3-20 weeks and are faster breeders than the other 2 species.
Here are a few tips.
1) Patience, it can take awhile to get a roach colony gong. Unless of coarse you buy a ready made colony of a 1000 or more with lots of adults. Once your roach colony is established, you’ll never have to buy feeders from your lps or online again, ever.
2) Have 3 bins. One for the breeders and one for the feeders and the 3rd for cleaning (holding bin). The less disturbance of the adults, the better and faster production. Check them once a week or how ever often you feel you need to to replenish there food and water gel.
3) When determining what size to buy or feed to your reptiles, measure the space between your lizards eyes and buy or feed roaches smaller. This will assure your pet can manage the roaches without any problems.
4) Roaches breeding to fast for you to feed off? It happens. Several options here! Lower heat, but never below 68°F. Low temps slow them down, so little or no breeding. Give some away to friends or sell off a few. Freeze what you don’t need, grind up and add back into there food source. But, DO NOT RELEAESE into the wild!
5) Collecting to feed your pets! Several ways of mamaging your roaches for picking up. Pickup egg flat by hand or strong tongs if the feeling of roaches gross you out. Shake roaches off into a plastic container like a large deli cup, shoebox size or similar container. You can hold the conrainer with roaches and let your lizard, etc. feed from it. So you don’t actually have to handle them with your fingers, although its not bad. They don’t bite, but do have a strong grip for there size.
6) Use a kitchen colander for separating or sizing for feeding specific sizes to your pets. For sorting new born B. lateralis nymphs for feeding slings, etc. either pull egg cases and wait to hatch. Or take a 16 oz deli cup, drill 1/16″ holes in bottom, place in a deeper deli cup, pour your roaches in and gently shake. Babies will fall through.
Well, I hope this helps you in deciding rather or not roaches are for you. As an animal enthusiast, its very satisfying to breed roaches for all our animals to eat and enjoy. As with handling any animal, wash your hands afterwards!
Valid comments on/about/experience are all welcome. Spam, hate, offensive, etc… will be ignored/deleted. Thanks for reading, Greg Hagedorn.
