FOOD WARNING: Arugula

P

pannaking22

Gyna
Someone had been feeding the roaches in the insectary arugula without me knowing and this has caused a sizable die-off in a couple of species, including:

R. cf. capelloi

E. floridana

And I suspect it temporarily stunted/halted breeding in:

L. verrucosa

G. portentosa

I guess this has been ongoing with the person feeding them on occasion when the roaches didn't have any food and they really piled it on last week when I wasn't able to get in to take care of the inverts (field work plus getting engaged keeps you busy lol). Talked to them about it today and they said they were feeding plenty of it to the roaches in December/January as well while I was gone for the holidays, which could explain the die-off I was noticing when I got back then too...

Anyway, I don't recommend feeding arugula to roaches. Lettuce and cabbage seem to be somewhat accepted without any detrimental effects, but there's something about arugula that doesn't seem to be good for them. I can't speak for any of the other leafy greens at this point.

 
The only leafy green I've fed my roaches is romaine lettuce, and they appear to be fine under that diet. Thanks for the warning, and congrats on the engagement!

 
Interesting, thanks for the head's up, and like Tenevanica said, congratulations on the engagement! :D

 
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Romaine lettuce has been fine when I've used it. Not a lot of species seem to really like it, but there at least aren't any negative effects that I've seen. And thank you both! :)

 
I've fed arugula on occasion and not noted issues... perhaps it was the source? But thanks for the heads up.

My hissers really like leafy veggies every now and again... they've went wild for cilantro in the past, as well as the greens from carrots. They are always happy taking romaine.

My other species are more ambivalent about leaves.

 
The source certainly could be an issue. I also wonder if it was because the roaches were being fed large amounts of it for an extended period of time (every 1-2 days this person would drop more in). I wonder if he wasn't washing the arugula very well too...

From what I've seen, tossing in something leafy from time to time definitely seems to get the roaches going, so I think it's worth incorporating into a diet if the keeper has extra or old stuff. Certainly beats throwing it away!

 
Was it organic? Even some organic sources use natural pesticides. I found out the hard way vegitable oil is an insectide and commonly used in organic gardening. I tryed useing it in place of glyserin in my waxworm colony and it was a total colapse in 10 minutes. Although now I use it for the fire ants around my house. Sorry for your loses thats never fun.

 
Organic pesticides tend to be worse than regular pesticides and whenever I add fresh produce I make sure to wash everything really well. I know this person was washing the arugula because I talked to them about it, but they may have just been going for a super quick rinse and didn't really get any potential pesticides off. I'll have to get some of what they were using an put it in with a pesticide strip and see what happens. Really curious about that now actually lol. Colonies all seem to have stabilized now, so the next step is keeping them in good shape and getting them breeding again.

 
Thats great they are stable and hopefully they will be producing in no time. Where do you get pesticide strips from that could be fun to test foods I give my guys

 
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