Quality feeder food ?'s

[badkelpie]

Kirkland signature (costco) dog food is diamond. It's a step above the diamond naturals, almost identical to their chicken soup line. I think $25 for 40 lbs.

My roaches don't eat much pre-made food. I toss in an orange or a couple carrots, or some kale or leaves or leftover spaghetti or chicken bones. Whatever I have that I think they'd eat. Except cantaloupe, they won't eat that. They're huge and healthy, and breed faster than I can keep up with.

[unkempt1]

Only real things I can think of is a ton of wheat and corn in cheap dog food. Does it matter to the roaches, most likely not. Will it matter to the frogs and the animals we feed the roaches to, I don't know.

Ah, now I think I understand. The answer is more than likely yes, whatever contents are in their stomachs will pass on to your animals. I keep two bins. One for feeding and one for breeding. My breeder bin gets the recipe above, with different fruits and veggies I have as table scraps throughout the week. My feeder bin only gets things like collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, and very rarely apple and mango slices. This is to pass on a healthy gut to my frog and bearded dragon.

If I were you I would have a similar system. You want to have full control of what goes into your pets, and its equally important you bother your roaches as little as possible. They will breed more and multiply faster.

[MatthewM1]

I made a batch of chow that the roaches really seem to enjoy they sometimes even go for it over fruit and veggies. I bought a box of individual size bags of trail mix, but took one of those minus the m&M's(leaving rains, almonds, cashews and peanuts) and ground it up with a handfull of cheerios

[unkempt1]

You know, I was rereading this thread and it gave me pause. What dog food has the fewest or no preservatives? Even something in a small amount, since a little dog food really goes a long way when making roach chow. Anyone have any thoughts or experiences?

I ask because even with gut-loading, impurities can still exist in feeders (uric acid being a good example). It would probably be no different with feeders that have been given preservative-heavy diets. A good gut-loading may not be enough.

[fish4all]

There are tons of them that say they use no artificial preservatives. Tocopherol is a natural vitamin-E preservative in my dogs food. I have no clue how long any preservative would stay in a roaches digestive track or body parts.

[unkempt1]

There are tons of them that say they use no artificial preservatives. Tocopherol is a natural vitamin-E preservative in my dogs food. I have no clue how long any preservative would stay in a roaches digestive track or body parts.

Exactly! I have no clue either, but like the uric acid thing, I don't want to take chances. I guess I'll just look around at the store today and see what I find.

[fish4all]

All I know about the dog food I would use, If I decide to use it, is it will likely cost less than $1 a pound and more $0.25 a pound. Somewhere in there should be something that will work well enough for the roaches and not have so many contaminants in it that you can't get the roaches cleaned out enough while gut loading to make them "safer".