What's a cheaper food source than crickets?

[Mentat]

...I've also discovered that you can get 1000 turkish or dubia roaches for about $20...

Hell of a deal! Can get 1K crickets for $20 or 500 large Canadian night crawlers for $60; but adult Dubias are very expensive locally. Plan to mail order a starter colony for $60 and raise my own roaches soon.

[kueluck]

Reggie,
I just got my shipment of 2,000 turkish roaches shipped from TX to NC for $33 which also included a heat pack. There were no DOA in the entire batch. I only have 2 grey tree frogs & 2 toads to feed, these will last me forever.

[Reggie]

Gail ,
PM me with the companies name and info. I would love to take a look at what a local would have . Thanks a million !

[Curb71]

The roaches sound like a better idea. except since my toads live on about 3-4" of coco fiber bark, wouldnt the roaches just dig down and be gone? the crickets are dumb enough to just walk around the surface until they get spotted and ambushed.

Reggie,
I just got my shipment of 2,000 turkish roaches shipped from TX to NC for $33 which also included a heat pack. There were no DOA in the entire batch. I only have 2 grey tree frogs & 2 toads to feed, these will last me forever.

could you PM me the info too? sounds like a good idea!

[Sylvester]

Dubia roaches all the way.
I use them for toads and tarantulas.
They are easy to breed, easy to gutload, not smelling, and SLOW moving(very important feature in roaches)
You can breed them at room temp in a large storage box. just eggcrates and dubias.
Feed them fruit, vegs, catfood, pigfood, or any dry protein rich pellets.

[kueluck]

I sent the info to ya. The Turkish roaches don't dig down and bury themselves like the dubia do. They do run and hide but come out when it's dark and the toads & frogs enjoy hunting them. But I serve mine to the toads in a glass dish sunk into the ground and they seem to know where to find them, but then I always have wanderers so they can hunt them down. My frogs I hand feed since I haven't seen them ever go to the glass dish, but I keep some in there just in case they they get hunger during the night when I'm not up. For me it's easier to just order some instead of raising them since I'm feeding 4 amphibians.

The roaches sound like a better idea. except since my toads live on about 3-4" of coco fiber bark, wouldnt the roaches just dig down and be gone? the crickets are dumb enough to just walk around the surface until they get spotted and ambushed.




could you PM me the info too? sounds like a good idea!

[kueluck]

Here's a pic of Rufus ready for "roach down in glass", get it, roach down in glass like pheasant under glass. I crack myself up!!

[Dunian]

I've been trying to find a good alternate to crickets for my toad since all my crickets keep dying. I am rather interested in these roaches. What stores sell them? And how many do you feed a day to a small sized toad?

[Curb71]

most "stores" don't sell them. you can call the local smaller pet stores in your area and ask if they can special order them for you but they are rather expensive. Other option is finding them online like Gail above mentioned.
As far as how many, toads will stop eating when they are full. when you say small I remember the old fruit fly days so not sure without something to compare it to.