-Hello all, this is my first post here in the reptile rooms. I living in mexico city. -I hope making the test of home made "roasted roaches" for food of herps, in the same form like is used roasted mealworms and roasted crickets (with the same method for roasted them). -Sure the herps need to be previously customed to feed on roasted insects. -My target species for this purpose is Blata lateralis. -I enjoy to have a bigger number of live roaches as feeders and as terrarium insects, but here some of the herp keepers donĀ“t like it to have any of these as a "living creature", but at same time they want to have their nutitive quality for feed their herps. -Someone of you already have some experience feeding your herps with roasted roaches specifically? and how much your herps like it these type of food in form of roasted roaches? do you recommended to use some type of added flavor to these roasted roaches? -Thank you in advance for your help. Best regards. Roberto.
I much prefer live feeders as do my herps. Some herps will eat "crunchy crickets" and such but BD's and Leo's are attracted to moving objects (at least in my experience) Do not buy into the marketing any roasted insect will not have the same nutritional composition as their live counterpart. The roasted insect will be lower in fat, have little to no water composition and less vitamin content. Proteins however are fairly stable and won't breakdown under such conditions. I can't find any info on roasting roaches but I hope the above info sheds some light on non-live feeders.
As my husband just started singing... " Cockroaches roasting over an open fire " Maybe you could add some BBQ flavoring and sell them to people?
-Thanks to all for your reply, also I forgot mentioning the other alternative method named "dry freezing" which also is used for treating insects for dead-feeders. Best regards.