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To Grind or Not to Grind- Powdered vs Pelleted Food Debate


Zephyr

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I've noticed that a lot of care sheets/guides have been urging the use of powdered food for roaches, incorporating as many as 12 different ingredients, some of them thrown in to appease what appears to be the desire to make our pet's/feeder's diets match some idealized human "health kick."

Roth mentions in his book Cockroaches: Ecology, Behavior, and Natural History that some species (I believe it was Blattella germanica) select foods to eat based on what nutrients they need. If this is the case, it may be detrimental to a colony's productivity to feed powdered foods, which provide a bombardment of nutrients instead of the ones the roaches would naturally select.

Roth also mentioned that other roaches (I believe the example this time was Periplaneta americana) will select novel foods over known ones in order to determine if the new food contains something more beneficial than the old food item had. If this is true, then blended diets also prevent this behavior, which could also be detrimental to colony health.

Now, this may not be important on a small scale, but I realize that some species such as Blaptica dubia are bred on an increasingly larger scale nowadays. For somebody trying to maximize production, if 1,000 adult females are producing only 20 babies each per litter instead of 25 due to being fed a blended diet, that is a loss of 5000 babies that could be used to feed hungry animals!

Discuss!!!! :P

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I have nothing to add here, as being new to the roach world and roach diet, but I am very interested in hearing what you pros have to say. Right now, I feed a blended food and whole either pellets or sticks of fish food. Along with the fresh stuff daily or every other day. I would like to know the best thing to feed, as there is much debate about high protein/ low protein/ calcium etc in their diets. What to do! Everyone has an opinion, and I would like to hear from the best! :)

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I give mine fresh fruits to fresh veggies weekly. I give them a high protien ferret food on occasion. I notice certain species with nibble on me if they want protien. Also I've noticed other species eat the protien more often then others, so I offer it to others more often.

I've always given a good variety and most of my cultures seem to be cranking out ooths/babies. :)

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Personally, I don't grind up cat/dog food for my roaches. Not many species I kept have a love of dry food, so I just offer them very sparingly, and any unfinished pieces goes to orange head cage the next day, which they will gladly devour in no time.

I don't grind them up due to only one reason, easy management. Un-grind dry food tend stay in the dish better, and I have a chance to take them out if I want to, even if the roaches grabbed some of them outside the dish, imagine that with grind up powder... actually, I don't want to know... :lol:

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most of my non feeder roaches get a mix of greens and fruit with some dog food maybe once and a while. my feeder roaches do get a powdered diet along with there fruit but this is a gutload i use because i feed these roaches off and i want my reptiles to get the extra nutrients

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I have never ground up food, nor used ground up food. As deterivores in nature, they are designed to eat what is in front of them efficiently enough and grinding food only makes more work for the keeper in a couple of ways.

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I don't bother to grind food, with the exception of my Parcoblatta pennsylvanica (interesting for Zephyr?). I started to after I saw one take off another's leg while a mass of them were competing for one pellet. In their case I still don't powder it, just break it up into pieces that can be spread around the tank.

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The chicken pellets food for my roaches are mixed solid and powder.

The other roaches I have had no problems with these.

But the only roach specie that I noticed that likes to eat the solid ones are the Orange Heads.

Once they grind it to a powder form, the food just keeps on piling up on their food bowl, and I'll just throw it away.

Has anyone notice this too?

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That's exactly what I observed, orange heads like food pellets, they literally attack those pellets, and fight over them. Orange heads, at least mine, are usually quite skittish, but when it comes to protein, they're like hungry wolves put into front of some helpless sheep!

The chicken pellets food for my roaches are mixed solid and powder.

The other roaches I have had no problems with these.

But the only roach specie that I noticed that likes to eat the solid ones are the Orange Heads.

Once they grind it to a powder form, the food just keeps on piling up on their food bowl, and I'll just throw it away.

Has anyone notice this too?

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I have never ground the dog food that I use. All of my species seem to do just fine without grinding. 18 species and they all seem to eat the dog food ok. I have thought about grinding it down but I have never actually done it. My large colony of B. dubias mass swarm the food bowl and it is usually gone the next morning. The other species that I have if they generally dont eat it within a few days I remove it.

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http://www.forums.repashy.com/diets-live-foods-supplements/38413-roach-revolution-revelation-theory-about-reptile-gout.html

I have been looking for this article since this thread started. I had read it awhile ago, by Allen Repashy.

I don't know if anyone else has read this, but can you give me your thoughts on it please???

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some of that i had heard of on other gecko forums, i know of quite a few people on Geckos Unlimited who say to keep roach chow and gut-loads under 20% protein. in fact just by coincident my dogs i get is 18% protein diet which is what i use for the roaches if thay get and, also the gut load i do use is modified from this one for any one who is interested.

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Thank you for sharing that link! Anyone else willing to give up their secrets?? at least sort of??? Some favorite ingredient they use?? I have used dry baby cereal, the banana oatmeal, they really seem to like.

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http://www.forums.repashy.com/diets-live-foods-supplements/38413-roach-revolution-revelation-theory-about-reptile-gout.html

I have been looking for this article since this thread started. I had read it awhile ago, by Allen Repashy.

I don't know if anyone else has read this, but can you give me your thoughts on it please???

This certainly is very intriguing; however, there is one small factor that was overlooked. Some species of cockroach (I'm not sure if Blaptica do this but Parcoblatta and some others do) will actually excrete urital pellets separate from their normal poop. These pellets are white-ish and are a sort of external reserve of nitrogen; when the roach needs extra nitrogen that its bacteroids can't produce, they will eat these pellets to access more. If Blaptica dubia in fact produces these pellets, then there must be something else going on when sudden mass die-offs occur.

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Thank you for replying on it Kyle.. The Feeder Food issue has always been of interest to me. I read this link that was from above in this post http://www.geckosunlimited.com/community/feeders-food-nutrition/49403-feeder-insect-diets-gutload.html And found that the mix for Cricket/roach just seems odd to me, using all flour and some yeast. Sounds good for the bugs, but what about the animals you are feeding the bugs too? And their feeder mix.. to feed 24 hours before, with the paprika as added beta carotene just seems weird, since Paprika is technically a nut.. and nuts are bad for bugs! I dehydrate carrots for added BC.

I just don't know. I don't mind putting in extra effort and time with the food for the bugs. Actually, I enjoy it! :) So to go to great lengths to make something with proper nutrition and all that good stuff, is fine with me. Maybe I am over analyzing the entire thing, and AM doing more than I need to. I just wish there was a happy medium.. here.. use this.. this and this.. and you got the best food for feeders and for the animals you feed them too.

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If there is one "best for everything" food out there it is probably either fish pellets or chicken egg laying crumbles; I'd imagine a mix of the two would create the best feeder roach diet with the least amount of hassle and monetary loss to the breeder.

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If there is one "best for everything" food out there it is probably either fish pellets or chicken egg laying crumbles; I'd imagine a mix of the two would create the best feeder roach diet with the least amount of hassle and monetary loss to the breeder.

Thank you! I used to use the chicken feed for my meal worms. I will see if I can find some around here. I do use the fish pellets. Now is a good time to look for them, when outside ponds are getting close to being wintered, and fish food goes on sale. Is there a particular one that you have found they like? I have bought Koi pellets, Cichlid Pellets, Regular fish pellets and fish sticks. What do you think about the box turtle food? I have bought a little of that to see if they like it, but I don't see them eating any of it.

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I usually get the huge bags of game fish food; much cheaper and it lasts a long time. Some foods they just don't like; you know something is bad when roaches won't touch it.

I used to offer this one kind of parrot food. One feeding day I added some to my E. distanti's food, then checked on them a week later. They ate everything (including most of the styrofoam cup I put the food in) but did not touch the parrot food. Obviously, something is just not right if roaches won't touch something. :P

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Thank you for replying on it Kyle.. The Feeder Food issue has always been of interest to me. I read this link that was from above in this post http://www.geckosunlimited.com/community/feeders-food-nutrition/49403-feeder-insect-diets-gutload.html And found that the mix for Cricket/roach just seems odd to me, using all flour and some yeast. Sounds good for the bugs, but what about the animals you are feeding the bugs too? And their feeder mix.. to feed 24 hours before, with the paprika as added beta carotene just seems weird, since Paprika is technically a nut.. and nuts are bad for bugs! I dehydrate carrots for added BC.

I just don't know. I don't mind putting in extra effort and time with the food for the bugs. Actually, I enjoy it! :) So to go to great lengths to make something with proper nutrition and all that good stuff, is fine with me. Maybe I am over analyzing the entire thing, and AM doing more than I need to. I just wish there was a happy medium.. here.. use this.. this and this.. and you got the best food for feeders and for the animals you feed them too.

you have to remember that is the gut load it's not made for the roaches it made so when the roaches get eaten the reptiles get that nutrition. also in the stuff i use i substitute the paprika (ground pepper actually)with powdered spirulina, i also actually mix in some bee pollen, powdered alfalfa and some crested gecko diet (ether Clarks or Repashy).

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you have to remember that is the gut load it's not made for the roaches it made so when the roaches get eaten the reptiles get that nutrition. also in the stuff i use i substitute the paprika (ground pepper actually)with powdered spirulina, i also actually mix in some bee pollen, powdered alfalfa and some crested gecko diet (ether Clarks or Repashy).

VERY true! I have heard of several people using bee pollen! That is good for people too. I also like to use the gecko diet (altho expensive!) and they seem to really like that stuff. I REALLY appreciate everyone's input on this subject! Thank you!

I always thought Paprika was made from a nut!!! Super interesting! After I read the Wikipedia, I realized I was thinking of nutmeg! Which (duh) is most certainly a nut! :rolleyes:

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no problem spiruluna and bee pollen are supposed to be some of those supper food/nutritional supplements, which might be another reason that roaches are found in bee hives some times. i know for a fact that honey by it's self will stay good for a really long time, thay have found honey in Egyptian that is reportedly still good so there might be something to that.

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I had just finished reading the article of Allen Repashy. Thanks to Cindy for sharing it with us.

The main concern that he had was the impact it had on their reptiles because of the accumulated uric acid that leads to gout.

I don't know if this would also affect arachnids since I keep tarantulas and scorpion. Excess calcium is one of their health problems that I know of.

The chicken pellets I have shows an 18% crude protein.

According to him, 15% and lower is the recommended level for our roaches.

So far, I noticed that my B. Dubias are alright and only has a few adult mortality.

I also give them fruits (banana,papaya,guava) together with the pellets.

I don't know maybe there are also a lot of other factors to consider too.

It is a very interesting research that they have done by the way.

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I like to grind cat food for my roaches, mix with ground cereal, baby food,brewer's yeast and chick feed. Cat food is high in protein but when mix with other food you get lower % of protein. I don't buy cheap cat food anymore, I get those with special blend of grains, fruits. Just found out last cat food I bought was different. I give them apple or oranges, sometimes green vegetables.

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