Bad food for roaches

[Zephyr]

I try to stick to apples, bananas,oranges, salad, baby carrots, box turtle food, dog food, never use kiwi,coconut

I have given several species kiwi before and although they didn't seem to enjoy it much, none of them died from it.

 

[roachboy]

i've lost a few hissers that way am pretty sure.

 

[wcbpolish]

I saw nuts listed as a no-no for roaches. I wanted to revisit the topic.

I received several un-opened boxes of Bear Naked Nut Cluster Crunch cereal, a week past the sell date (anyone else on here have freegan friends?) and I wanted to share the bounty with my roaches. Walnuts, pecans, and ground almonds are in the ingredient list. Sounds like I can't share it with my roaches... maybe I could pick out the portions without nuts? or maybe I should just stick to fish food, dog food, slices of apple and carrot, and other "safe" foods.

I already had some of my new B. dubia die this week... one of my students wanted to share her Inta Juice fruit smoothie with them so I let her give a small dixie cup of it. There were at least 3 dead nymphs and an adult male who was acting off within the next few days. I was just happy that a student took interest enough that she wanted to share what she had with the roaches! And from the website, it seemed safe enough. I wonder if it had yogurt in it or something. Guess the smoothies sold here at school are not for my roaches.

 

[kellakk]

Be careful of feeding them tomato or peppers, or basically anything from those two groups. Tomatoes are in the nightshade family and make poisonous chemicals, while peppers are spicy (obviously lol).

 

[Tongue Flicker]

Mine love cucumbers! Are you sure?

The smell they don't like but it is practically safe for them to eat it. Also, the wild roaches or the house pest varieties are ones who hate it most. Captive bred roaches either ignore it or is unaffected by the cucumber scent.

Don't they use coconut oil in cleaners and some insecticides?

Coconut oil can be processed for used in floor waxes, dunno bout insecticides though. You may be mistaking it for chrysanthemum as those are used for pesticides.

Be careful of feeding them tomato or peppers, or basically anything from those two groups. Tomatoes are in the nightshade family and make poisonous chemicals, while peppers are spicy (obviously lol).

Peppers are only spicy to animals that has an allergic taste bud receptor such as mammals. Peppers are safely eaten by animals such as land hermit crabs, turtles and birds

 

[windward]

I toss pieces of pepper to my orange heads frequently. Just make sure no stem pieces are on any of the pepper - the same for tomato. While the fruit is perfectly safe, the stems and leaves of tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes (all in the family Solanaceae) are toxic.

As for the smoothie.. the Inta site looks suspicious, there is no nutritional information (unless I'm missing it) and vague over encompassing health claims. It could be possible that extra calcium is added to the smoothies, though, which isn't good for roaches. If the cereal is still good, eat it or share it with someone who wants it. Sell by dates are more or less a suggestion on items like that.

 

[pierre72]

Yes and I've read that cucumber peel is a roach-repellent.

 

[pierre72]

I was heart-warmed by your daughter keeping the "pest" roach for a pet. I'm also impressed that you kept them in there and then let them go. Most people would feed them off to predators or use insecticides. Very commendable!! I like German, American, and other 'pest' species also 'cause they have the colors and wavy antennae like exotic. Maybe not quite as colorful. I have a colony of German that I rescued from a friend's house.