Possible interesting update on dubia food

So, as some of you may have seen, I posted a thread on here the other day asking if anyone had any experience with feeding dubias Fluker's orange cube cricket food. It's been a few days and I found something interesting when I looked in my feeder container tonight. So, a little backstory. I had crickets in a cricket keeper originally. I ordered some dubias to replace them for Peter, my LP sling. So, I cleaned out the keeper and made sure all the cricket crap was out of it. I did some reading, talked some of you guys, and decided to use that cricket food for the dubias. I read and heard on here that dog food is a good food source for dubias so I took some of that a put it in the keeper for the roaches. I put some of that cricket food in too because, for one, I have it and figure I should use it and for two because it is also a water source. I thought that would be a great substitute for water crystals. So, I did all that, put a little egg crate in for the roaches to hide in and dumped them all in. Some of the roaches immediately hide in the crate, some jumped right on the dog food, and some jumped right on the cricket food. I've checked in on them from time to time and they've basically stayed like that. Flash forward to tonight. I get the feeder to grab a new roach for Peter and I notice one that looks dead. I think maybe it's faking so I pull it out and poking for a bit to see. Nope, it's really dead. Okay, whatever. Bugs die all the time right? I look around, find a roach that looks the right size and pull it out. Poke it a few times. Wait. Poke it some more. Wait. Try exposing it to water. Wait. Nope, dead. What connects these two dead roaches? They were both on the cricket food. I start digging around and I've pulled out five roaches so far that were very dead. All were on that cricket food. I checked and the roaches on the dog food and in the egg crate are all 100% okay. Now, I realize this could be a lot of things and I'm going to keep an eye on this to see if the pattern continues but as of right now it is looking like Fluker's orange cube cricket food might kill dubia roaches. Like I said, this could be a coincidence. Maybe they just died cause they are bugs and bugs are stupid and die. I dunno. I've put more of the cricket food in to test it and I'm going to watch and see what happens. I'll update this thread with what happens as I see it. If anyone has any additional info related to this I would love to hear it cause this is really interesting to me. Roaches of all breeds are known for being virtually unkillable so if this stuff can do it that would blow my mind. More than likely they just died because they're stupid bugs though. But that isn't as fun.

You could always separate a few and have two identical tubs with say 5 roaches in one and 5 in another and only have the cricket food in one tub and dog food in another. The chances of 5 randomly chosen roaches dying of old age in the one day would be pretty slim.

I have used the orange cubes on Dubia and no issues and none died. Usually I just make my own Dubia food from things in the pantry, plain Quaker oats, shredded wheat, Fruit Loops, Goldfish flakes and Rabbit food pellets. I will also thrown in some fresh fruit and vegetables.

I'm not sure the Froot Loops are legit food for anything!
Call the R.S.P.C.A!!!!

What in the heck are you talking about? I grew up eating Froot Loops! The breakfast of champions! Literally.

@SpellKaster4 I got some of those roach cubes as a free sample once and I just threw them into an 18 gallon hisser bin that had around 1000 roaches of all ages and sizes. The stuff disappeared and I didn't notice an unusual amount of dead roaches during that time. There are always at least one or two, but nothing excessive.

As a side note, many roaches are intolerant of shipping and moving. Young ones seem to be more resilient, but I always tell people that if they are starting a colony, they should by juvies and let them mature in their own bin. Whenever I take one of my bins out to do a job (Yes, I do roach jobs…), there are always large numbers of die offs for about a week after the "disturbance". Dubia are more sensitive to this than hissers, lobsters or lateralis. Some of the larger Blatta sp. are even more sensitive to it than the dubia. When shipping B. giganteus, you can expect 60-90% die offs for juvies or adults.

Over the years I bought several 100 lots of mixed sizes to start dubia colonies. 10-20% die offs were the norm after shipping each time I did it. I think most shippers are aware of this and they pad the orders with an extra 10-20% to compensate.

I hope I haven't ruined your image of the indestructible roach, but they aren't as un-killable as some people think. Definitely 1000X better than crickets, but not totally infallible. Its a number game.

I figured/knew it was gonna be something along those lines but the conspiracy of the cricket food was more interesting.

Sorry for ruining your fun…

It's okay. I'll forgive you....this time. lol. On the plus side, Peter has figured out that dubias are indeed food and is happily nomming on them now. XD

Well that didn't take long!

Nope! My baby boy is a fast learner apparently. I've only had him about eleven days but so far I'm really happy I decided to go with an LP for my first tarantula. Peter is certainly making things easy for me so far.

Roaches are real sensitive to dehydration. They won't drown in a water dish either. They also need some ventilation. When waste gases build up, it can kill the entire colony.

You do realize that feeding videos are practically mandatory now right?

LPs produce some of the best MMA worthy feeding videos out there!! No mice however!!

I don't think I'll ever feed Peter a mouse. It'd be cool to watch him murder it but I'd be worried about it fighting back. Maybe a gecko once in a blue moon but I dunno. The last dubia I gave him was pre-killed so it would have been boring. I'll put up his first death battle though promise!

Geckos can still inflict damage and frankly in some irrational way seems even more cruel then a mouse because mice are pest critters eg varmints whereas geckos aren't.

Heck, if you are interested in geckos, set up an enclosure for one. They are really neat reptiles and much easier to maintain then bearded dragons or other lizards are.

Honestly I feel the same way. I used to have a ball python so now all rodents are just food items. Geckos are pretty cool though. Once Peter is full grown I'd like to find a large thing I could feed him on rare occasions just to watch him go into beast mode. The more I think about it the more I doubt I could do a feeder gecko. In the pet store I work in I have to take care of breaded dragons, leopard geckos, crested geckos, and so on. They're too cool to be food.

Do large hissers and the occasional Earth worm. I usually feed mine an Earth worm first meal post most and another once a month just for variety. Lasiodora species will eat practically anything that moves. Horn worms are also highly popular.



Just do it.

I was thinking about horn worms as a nice snack. We carry those at work so I can get them cheap. Here's a noob question about molting. I know that not eating and low activity are common signs of going into molt. I also know that they flip onto their backs to do the molt so I'm somewhat ready for that. But are there any other common signs before a molt? Like color change or anything like that? Or does it really depend on the species?

A little update. Peter has nommed one dubia but that's it. Either he's not hungry or he doesn't like the taste lol.

I don't feed my tarantulas as often as you do. A dubia is a pretty big and meaty meal. It was day before yesterday when Peter ate the last one, right? My guess would be that he's not hungry yet.

What is the room temp where Peter's enclosure sits? Cooler temps also mean slower digestion.