turkistan roaches

[nickyx]

hi,
are the turkistan roaches worth breeding as food for beardies?
nicky

[x Sarah x]

Not sure if they'd keep up with the demand of a beardie...spiders, yes. Lizards, not sure.

If you buy 50 adult turkistan, then nothing will happen for about 2 months then all of a sudden the tank will explode with thousands of babies (which are diddy) they do grow quick however, but you need right conditions for ooths to hatch in time, they need humidity and heat but not too much humidity or else you'll get mould growth which is fatal to both roach and ooth.

My geckos, beardies and BTS's love turkistans, but we went a bit made with them and have had to stop feeding them altogether as i cleaned them out only to discover about 30 adults and no young, eek! nearly lost the colony and main cause was beetle larvae in the tank, they destroy the ooths, and with weather cooler the adults slowed down breeding too, so had to clean out and add heatmat, hopefully all is not lost.

However i still have a huge colony of dubia going, as well as cave roaches, death heads, flesh eaters, bullets, cuban burrowing and mini hissers going, but with the amount that the 7 bigger lizards eat i still have to buy crickets and mealies on a regular basis!

[toad650]

My colony happily feeds my ackies, anoles, fan footed gecko and crestie, but i do feed them all other food aswell, to make a varied diet but my food cost is now minimal to what it was. They only get the size of large crix really so beardies may eat quite a few.

[nickyx]

thank you, did want dubai but cant seem to get any!
only have 2 young beardies & a chameleon (maybe gecko soon!) at the mo lizard wise & would still get crickets/ mealworms etc
may give em a go used to have hissing cockroach colony as pets many years ago,lol

[toad650]

turks are alot quicker at multiplying than dubs but are a fair bit smaller. Just give them heat n humidity n there do the rest but as said keep an eye out for mould mainly on the fresh foods i where i've found it starting but stopped it quick.

[pugly mugly]

The turkistan roaches are really fast and not the easiest to get out of the tub and into the vivarium. (lol they crawl up your arm and are really quick).The dubia roaches are so easy to breed and to use. But they seem to take an age to grow, but they are pretty slow at moving so they are easier to control when you pick them up.
I do breed both but the turkistan adults are a little small for fully grown bearded dragons.

I do find that turkistan roaches are ideal for juvenile and sub adult beardies. They are so fast and the beardies have to chase and hunt them down. Great to watch.

I use egg crates in the tub for breeding and just put a full egg tray in with the dragons and they love them. they climb up the crates and eat lots.

The dubia never seem to escape, but the turkistan are really quick and seem to be good at escaping.

The turkistan roaches need a slightly more humid environment than dubia so that the eggs will hatch.

They both need heat to breed.

Both are good but i would recommend the dubia, otherwise you might have your wife screaming when a cockroach is loose.

[Button12]

i have that problem
(saying that she screams when crix get loose and once when the monitor got out )