cat food or dog food or chicken food or fish food?

TiercelR

TiercelR

Third Instar
Hi, which food is better for the roaches? cat food pellets or dog food pellets or chicken food pellets or fish food pellets? i do feed my roaches with dog food pellets, fruit and veggies,, but i don´t know if the dog food pellets are the best for my roaches. Thanks.

 
I've fed my roaches cat food, then dog food, and now chick feed. They all seem to work just as well as each other, I've noticed no difference between them. 

 
In my opinion roach chow is the best way to go i manly put oats, cereal, fish food and bee pollen in my roach chow, that way you can control what Is going in there diet, and it is much healthier, especially if you feed reptiles I would strongly recommend during roach chow, I could even make some up and sell some to you, cape cod roaches sells it as well.

I’ll list off the dry foods you mentioned from worst to best

cat food, dog food, chick feed and fish food

 
Which type is best depends strongly on what roaches you're feeding, as well as the brand of the food itself. How much filler is in the food, what ratio of protein to carbohydrates it has, and how fast it molds can all make a difference. 

 
Roaches that are not used for food could be given poorer diets but I strive to take the best care of all of my animals, I still don’t think anyone can argue that any other dry food is better than roach chow, even the best high quality dog food will have  preservatives and some fillers in it, but that’s just my opinion, but I’m willing to challenge anyone who disagrees with me  :P   

 
I don't think it matters much for roaches. I use fish food flakes as they eat it relatively fast so no leftovers remain. This to avoid getting a mite explosion. 
I don't feed cereals and oats due to the tendency to attract mites. 
Dried oaks leaves and partly rotten oaks leaves (sterilized) are available to the roaches all the time. Every weeks some carrots or apple pieces. That's all I feed them. 
And as Betta132 mentioned: the amount of filler is important. I carefully look at fish foods and compare them to see which contain most proteins. There is a big difference between brands. I assume it's the same for dog and cat food. 
 

 
As with all living creatures, a varied diet is healthiest. 

Stay away from Layer's mash (for Poultry birds) as there is such a high level of calcium it can cause moulting difficulty due to the shell being overdeveloped. 

All the best from Bill. :D

 
Anyone heard about using pig chow for the roach chow base?  I picked up some dubias from a friend and he uses a 50lb bag of pig pellets mixed with a little bit of Repashy food, I think it was 1tbsp crested gecko MRP per pound of pig chow.  He gave me some and they go absolutely nuts over it, eating it faster than I ever seen them eat anything.  I am looking at Family Farm Pig 14 (what they sell near me), looks like lots of good stuff in it (grains, molasses, alfalfa, lots of vitamins), but one thing that I find odd is it says it has extra copper.  Its cheap at $16 for 50lbs.  Anyone be worried about the extra copper?  

 
Marlon said:
Anyone heard about using pig chow for the roach chow base?  I picked up some dubias from a friend and he uses a 50lb bag of pig pellets mixed with a little bit of Repashy food, I think it was 1tbsp crested gecko MRP per pound of pig chow.  He gave me some and they go absolutely nuts over it, eating it faster than I ever seen them eat anything.  I am looking at Family Farm Pig 14 (what they sell near me), looks like lots of good stuff in it (grains, molasses, alfalfa, lots of vitamins), but one thing that I find odd is it says it has extra copper.  Its cheap at $16 for 50lbs.  Anyone be worried about the extra copper?  
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I'm not sure if it would hurt the roaches at all but I don't know what they are going to be fed off to. That would be my only concern is giving some reptile copper poisoning (which would be relatively difficult to do mind you). Otherwise, if they eat it, and start producing normal nymphs at a normal or improved pace, keep using it. 

I currently feed ZuPreem FruitBlend bird food, cheap cat food, bee pollen at times, fish flakes at times and occasionally butternut squash and oranges. But honestly mine did fine on cheap dogfood and oranges in the past. 

 
For the record, the powdered pig chow (plus water crystals) is working out great for the babies.  The adults just nibble and prefer lower protein food from what I can tell.  So for the colony I am doing that plus a wide variety of table scraps and fresh veggies and old mushrooms.  I've been noticing species specific preferences, for instance, the flat horned hissers don't seem to like seaweed+sesame oil, while red runners fight over it.  I set up a  time lapse cam on the red runners to see what food they prefer and the results were interesting.  I just want to come up with an appropriate arthropod / home mini-ranch hobby youtube name and I'll start uploading bug vids.

 
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Marlon said:
FI've been noticing species specific preferences, ...
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Yes, sometimes they're quite noticeable. 

My byrsotria definitely prefer protein-rich food, schultesia take only plant-derivatives, etc.. 

I don't use cat/dog food, but give fish flakes with algae, at least cleaners consume them readily.

 
Poultry Feed has DL Methionine in it....a "green" pesticide patented by the university of Florida. It targets insects with an alkaline gut physiology including mosquitos. termites, larvae like caterpillars, and our beloved cockroach amongst others. Its been sprayed on stored grain for years to control pests. Its used to increase protein levels making meatier and faster growing birds.... Patent Link

 
I use lower quality dog food (with grain) for my feeder roaches (they also get fruits, veggies, and other good stuff).

For my smaller groups I use high quality Koi pellet food, which seems to be working well. I use fish flakes occasionally but they mix into the substrate, making it harder to determine how much was eaten.

 
I got some horse food recently, it's a natural whole food mixture... oats, alfalfa, peas, sunflower seeds, papaya, flax, algae, etc. I feed my roaches off so I wanted something nutritious. Only thing is I have to blend it up to crush the seeds. Some species will chew the seeds, but others don't touch them. I'll leave some of them whole too and throw the food on the moist side of the bin, the oats sprout everywhere and I assume that's nutritious. Adds variety too.

I also like to use big bags of organic carrots and veggie/fruit scraps. I've been thinking of adding some spirulina, bee pollen, and some other dry ingredients to the horse food as well, but so far they seem to be doing well on it. Surprised no one else ever mentions it

 
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