Blatta Lateralis as feeders?

[cyris69]

Thanks for the reply, the frog room is sealed pretty tight and the furthest from the kitchen. I'm just tired of slow dubia colonies (I have thousands of nymphs), expensive worms, and lats are so cheap. I was a bug guy first so I don't like feeding my dubia off much as I find them quite attractive and interesting. I think lat females are quite pretty but still more "roach" looking than dubia so I don't see much attachment so to speak if that makes sense.

My only real concern is infestability, there are to many yes/no arguments. Most people say that it's just hard, they may linger around in your house but the egg sac will dry out and even if it magically hatched the babies would dry up and die. I've found several dubia around the house (males only) either dead or about to be usually not very far at all from the frog room.

[Herpguy]

Latteralis are probably the best feeder out there, as long as your animals aren't too big. They are EXTREMELY fast. You have to shake them into a container, you can't just pick them up like dubia. However, this makes them the most attractive feeder for animals, they never stop moving like crickets, and they will never burrow. You may get escapees, but they need a very high humidity. I have never seen a live one in the house, only dried up husks.

[cyris69]

Thanks for the reply Herpguy, makes me feel better. I think it's just how they look more "roach" like compared to what I'm used to. The worry is fading, now how about this so called smell? I plan on no substrate as well. I haven't cleaned my dubia colony in maybe 6 or so months and no smell at all. It is time for a cleaning though. However my dubia are in a 55 gallon tank

[Herpguy]

No problem. I don't know what people are talking about when they complain about the smell, because I never had that problem.

[cyris69]

I setup their tank last night in preparation for them today. I added packaging tape ~4" of it around the inside near the top, however, it was impossible for me to keep it flat so there are wrinkles all over the tape. Will this make the tape useless for what it was intended to do? Don't know if I should just remove the tape since its wrinkled everywhere.

[Mmfh]

I've kept them for a year now. I didn't want them to breed so I keep the humidity low and have never had an egg case. I keep mine in an open (no lid) Tupperware with egg crate and no substate (makes for easy cleaning), a bowl for water crystals, and a food dish. My males have never flown and neither sex can climb the plastic. They must have enough humidity to molt as they have all grown into adults but like I said , no breeding. The only time I have had an escape is when I dropped one while trying to tong feed my tarantulas. About two to three weeks later I will find it dead in the dogs water bowl. I give them dry foods so I don't need to worry about rotting foods attracting fruit flies and that way I don't have to mess with the roaches much. I basically ignore them unless I need to top off the food dish, give them water, clean, or get some for food. I find mine to be quite calm and they don't even bother to hide or run when I give them food or water anymore.

[cyris69]

Awesome, thanks for the reply Mmfh! Did you ever notice them managing to climb at all? So why the decision not to have them breed even if its just a little.

For food I've switched my dubia/hisser colony over to dumar non-medicated chicken starter mash ground to a fine powder, they love it but it does have a strong feed smell which I think is why they swarm it. Plus it only cost 16$ for a 50lb bag which will last pretty much forever

These will also be going into a 29gal tall aquarium.