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Dry Mixture?


Cooorndog

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I am trying to save money where i can, that being said i need some idea's on ingredients to put in a dry food mix. My preference is to not use cat or dog food so im looking for Idea's on what to add to my mixture and not break the bank. Right now im using hen laying chicken pellets, oats, and cornflakes. Im trying to keep my protien content below 15%. i grind it all up together to break down the pellets. Right now they eat it but arent excited about it. I was buying from a dealer and they absolutly loved his mix, i wish i had his ingredients!

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Forcep,

Im not convinced but I have had some breeeders tell me not to use Dog food. Im using my Dubia's as feeders and want the best nutrition for my Dragons. Im still new to the Roach World, mainly dont want to cause any health problems for my Dragons. I was told to much protien, or animal byproducts could cause gout in my Dragons.

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I have an Ackie Monitor who falls into the same relative category for gout as your dragons. After doing a LOT of research into it, i found that there is a lot more involved in gout than high protein food being fed to roaches. There are many many monitors who've had and died from gout while never eating a roach. The main cause i've found is dehydration of the lizard not allowing the uric acid to be expelled. This relates directly to enclosure humidity levels and your own husbandry. In humans it's been seen that dehydration is a major cause of gout when uric acid levels are unchanged.

Also the main source of this information being an add campaign to sell you a product isn't reassuring to its validity. Don't take my word for it though. Look around. Either way I mainly use the chicken feed also, but am not nearly as shy of the higher protein foods anymore due to having a good lizard setup.

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Smiley,

I really appreciate your input. Very helpful explanation. I keep the humidity as good as i can in my enclosure, i have a bowl of water which my adult doesnt really pay attension to except to poo in it every once in a while.. I also mist her at least once daily sometimes twice and bathe her once a week or so. I have also been researching gout causes. My next batch of food may include some Cat/ Dog food in it. Maybe do a 50/50 base with Cat/Dog food and Chicken feed. Thank You.

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You're welcome. If you look around, there was a huge british roach seller that closed down recently (i forget their name). The guy is quoted in videos saying that his roach mix is about 50% protein. Along with this mix he fed a lot of different assorted veggies. Probably a few hundred thousand roaches on hand of 15+ different varieties supposedly doing great on this feeding schedule. The youtube videos are all still up to see.

I try to copy this routine and just use a dry food with far less protein. I make feeding easy by making the dry mix about 50% of the food source. When i go to the grocery store i normally buy fruit, squash, veggies, or whatever is on sale and cheap for the weekly roach staple. This way they have a low and high protein food source available almost every day that they can differentiate between. If they want ruffage, it's available, or if they want a higher protein food, it's also available. From what i've read, the uric acid storage is a natural (and awesome) food storage method for roaches. The excess protein eaten is converted to uric acid. This uric acid has the ability to be easily stored and converted back to protein in times of food shortage for the roaches. It's my assumption that young nymphs, old nymphs, and breeding adults will use differing amounts of protein throughout their life which from our perspective means that you'll be feeding roaches with all different levels of uric acid if only one type of food is available. Leaving the multiple food sources gives them the choice.

Also if you don't have one, get a hydrometer to read the humidity in your bearded dragon enclosure. They have the nice digital humidity + temp one at walmart for $10. It reads the lows and highs over the past 24 hours and works like a charm for me. Btw i'm no expert... This is just what i've found to work out very well.

Good luck

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