Besides ducks- what else ya got?

[nickie]

Lets see if I can organize my zoo.... and let me put right here at the start... the dog alone takes more work than most of the other pets combined.

(snakes)
Somewhere around 100 ball pythons including the 20something eggs currently in the incubator. Several girls to lay soon too. My boyfriend and I breed them, and are intending on making it our sole form of income some day. Several have names, but most do not.
1 Coastal Carpet Python named Rousseau
1 Dumeril's boa named Rosy
1 Mangrove Cat Snake named Dr. Dre (He was surrendered to a vet we work with, with the name Brad Pitt... but I kept forgetting which celebrity name the snake had... since several other snakes they were talking about also had celebrity names.. so I renamed it Dr. Dre)
2 Western Hognose named Mr. and Mrs. Hognose

(tarantulas)
1 King Baboon named Kony
1 Mexican Red Rump named Margaret Thatcher
1 Chaco Gold Knee named Castro

(birds)
1 Vosmaeri Eclectus female named Evelyn
1 Senegal Parrot named Normandy
2 Indian runner Ducks (Chocolate and Blue)
3 chickens (Buff orpingon, I THINK a SL Wyandotte, but not sure yet.. and an unidentified, unsexed bantam)

(cats)
1 Lilac point siamese named Rukia
1 tabby-somethingorother named Ichigo

(dogs)
1 lab/heeler mix named DJ
1 lab/pit mix named Roman.. who is technically our roommate's dog, but that we more or less take care of for her.

(feeders)
1 Old rotting stump used to hack off pieces to feed termites to the tarantulas, ducks, and chickens
1 colony of turkistan cockroaches for additional income and bird/spider feeders
1 colony of dubia cockroaches for the same reasons
3 racks full of breeding rats to feed to the snakes and to sell the nice/pretty ones as pets

I used to breed rats too. I enjoyed them a lot.

I know nothing about roaches, how do you keep them? And what makes the two breeds different?

 

[wildpeas]

3 horses-warmblood gelding who just stands around looking pretty, pony mare who is a typical pony mare, and my old girl who stands around being cranky

2 dogs-blue heeler who drives me up the wall and has one problem after another and a cattle dog cross who doesn't do anything

4 cats-mostly indoor

Next year I am getting 12 chicks and possibly a pig. After that we are moving up to beef steer. Yumm!

I would like to get some guinea fowl but I like my neighbors too much.

 

[Anatopism]

They are each in 5 gallon buckets at the moment. As the colonies grow I will move them into a larger sterilite type tub. They have egg crate for climbing on and get veggies, oats, sometimes some dog food, and commercial cricket feed. They get cricket water gel/crystals.

The Turkish/turkistan roaches are about 1/3 the size of the dubias, and they grow a little faster. The tiny ones are perfect for my spiderling, and the adults are great as little chicken snacks. The dubias are nice for bigger birds or larger spiders/lizards.

Both are SO much cleaner than crickets, don't eat their offspring, and are quiet. You can leave them uncleaned for months and there is hardly any mess or smell. Neither can climb up the side of a smooth 5 gallon bucket or glass, but I reccommend a thin line of vaseline in an aquarium (they can climb the silicone) or less smooth plastics. If you check craigslist in the pets section frequently, there are likely people getting rid of colonies every so often, or you can find suppliers online to start a colony. Dubias cost a bit more as an initial startup than Turkish (and both are more than crickets), but if you find a whole colony (300+ is recommended to feed regularly off of for a few lizards or a couple the size of bearded dragons) they make excellently healthy feeders for lots of animals

 

[nickie]

They are each in 5 gallon buckets at the moment. As the colonies grow I will move them into a larger sterilite type tub. They have egg crate for climbing on and get veggies, oats, sometimes some dog food, and commercial cricket feed. They get cricket water gel/crystals.

The Turkish/turkistan roaches are about 1/3 the size of the dubias, and they grow a little faster. The tiny ones are perfect for my spiderling, and the adults are great as little chicken snacks. The dubias are nice for bigger birds or larger spiders/lizards.

Both are SO much cleaner than crickets, don't eat their offspring, and are quiet. You can leave them uncleaned for months and there is hardly any mess or smell. Neither can climb up the side of a smooth 5 gallon bucket or glass, but I reccommend a thin line of vaseline in an aquarium (they can climb the silicone) or less smooth plastics. If you check craigslist in the pets section frequently, there are likely people getting rid of colonies every so often, or you can find suppliers online to start a colony. Dubias cost a bit more as an initial startup than Turkish (and both are more than crickets), but if you find a whole colony (300+ is recommended to feed regularly off of for a few lizards or a couple the size of bearded dragons) they make excellently healthy feeders for lots of animals

Huh, I never thought to raise roaches. My sister used to raise crickets for her bearded dragon. Fascinating. I couldn't do it though... The only thing, ONLY, that will get me to scream and run away like a stupid girl is a beetle. Roaches, waterbugs, the weird things with the pinchers I freak out. I would love to see a pic of an actual colony though. Do they have nests and such? What is the difference between what you have and say the roaches you would see in a house or apartment?

 

[zooweemama]

They are each in 5 gallon buckets at the moment. As the colonies grow I will move them into a larger sterilite type tub. They have egg crate for climbing on and get veggies, oats, sometimes some dog food, and commercial cricket feed. They get cricket water gel/crystals.
The Turkish/turkistan roaches are about 1/3 the size of the dubias, and they grow a little faster. The tiny ones are perfect for my spiderling, and the adults are great as little chicken snacks. The dubias are nice for bigger birds or larger spiders/lizards.
Both are SO much cleaner than crickets, don't eat their offspring, and are quiet. You can leave them uncleaned for months and there is hardly any mess or smell. Neither can climb up the side of a smooth 5 gallon bucket or glass, but I reccommend a thin line of vaseline in an aquarium (they can climb the silicone) or less smooth plastics. If you check craigslist in the pets section frequently, there are likely people getting rid of colonies every so often, or you can find suppliers online to start a colony. Dubias cost a bit more as an initial startup than Turkish (and both are more than crickets), but if you find a whole colony (300+ is recommended to feed regularly off of for a few lizards or a couple the size of bearded dragons) they make excellently healthy feeders for lots of animals

We love dubias! I really strongly dislike crickets. Loud and smell and the die off is annoying. Dubias? No smell, no sound and no die off. They grow slow which I personally appreciate so they live longer. My beardie loves eating the 'molties'. Gosh I never even thought about it but can ducks eat them or do the ducks only eat squishy bugs?

 

[zooweemama]

Huh, I never thought to raise roaches. My sister used to raise crickets for her bearded dragon. Fascinating. I couldn't do it though... The only thing, ONLY, that will get me to scream and run away like a stupid girl is a beetle. Roaches, waterbugs, the weird things with the pinchers I freak out. I would love to see a pic of an actual colony though. Do they have nests and such? What is the difference between what you have and say the roaches you would see in a house or apartment?

I find Dubias to be very benign looking. They can get kinda large but really only the males finally end up looking like what you would think of as a 'cockroach'. Mostly they look like flattish rollie pollies in a way. My kids actually love holding the bigger ones and they fish out the ones that are molting (white from shedding before they harden again) for our beardie. I don't breed them but I buy in large quantities and I keep them in a 20 gal fish tank with a mesh lid. On one side I put egg crates for them to hide. On the other side a dish full of wet water crystals to drink and then food in the opposite corner. I clean their bins out every several months. It's as easy as picking out all the dubias, dumping out their poop (tiny brown beads), wash it up, dry it and put it all back in. Not rough at all.

 

[nickie]

They are each in 5 gallon buckets at the moment. As the colonies grow I will move them into a larger sterilite type tub. They have egg crate for climbing on and get veggies, oats, sometimes some dog food, and commercial cricket feed. They get cricket water gel/crystals.

The Turkish/turkistan roaches are about 1/3 the size of the dubias, and they grow a little faster. The tiny ones are perfect for my spiderling, and the adults are great as little chicken snacks. The dubias are nice for bigger birds or larger spiders/lizards.

Both are SO much cleaner than crickets, don't eat their offspring, and are quiet. You can leave them uncleaned for months and there is hardly any mess or smell. Neither can climb up the side of a smooth 5 gallon bucket or glass, but I reccommend a thin line of vaseline in an aquarium (they can climb the silicone) or less smooth plastics. If you check craigslist in the pets section frequently, there are likely people getting rid of colonies every so often, or you can find suppliers online to start a colony. Dubias cost a bit more as an initial startup than Turkish (and both are more than crickets), but if you find a whole colony (300+ is recommended to feed regularly off of for a few lizards or a couple the size of bearded dragons) they make excellently healthy feeders for lots of animals

We love dubias! I really strongly dislike crickets. Loud and smell and the die off is annoying. Dubias? No smell, no sound and no die off. They grow slow which I personally appreciate so they live longer. My beardie loves eating the 'molties'. Gosh I never even thought about it but can ducks eat them or do the ducks only eat squishy bugs?

Funny side note to "squishy bugs" my daughter spends a lot of her time hunting for worms and snails for the ducks. She gets so excited when she finds a "squishy" she has to run around and tell everyone. Slugs are squishies.

 

[Anatopism]

I find Dubias to be very benign looking. They can get kinda large but really only the males finally end up looking like what you would think of as a 'cockroach'. Mostly they look like flattish rollie pollies in a way. My kids actually love holding the bigger ones and they fish out the ones that are molting (white from shedding before they harden again) for our beardie. I don't breed them but I buy in large quantities and I keep them in a 20 gal fish tank with a mesh lid. On one side I put egg crates for them to hide. On the other side a dish full of wet water crystals to drink and then food in the opposite corner. I clean their bins out every several months. It's as easy as picking out all the dubias, dumping out their poop (tiny brown beads), wash it up, dry it and put it all back in. Not rough at all.

Exactly! Dubias (imo) don't look much like what people think of as a cockroach, or even a beetle. They are rounder, flatter, and much slower than the 'german cockroaches' you might find roaming or infesting a house. Turkistan roaches are much more similar in looks and movements to a german cockroach though, so if you can't handle a 'stereotypical' cockroach, you couldn't handle these guys. They are quick! But none of them bite. The turkistans have a much softer body and are very easy for any animal to digest. The dubias I assume would be no issue for adult ducks/chickens, and even the tiny ones probably wouldn't be bad for younger birds.. they have a fantastic meat-to-shell ratio, but I don't know enough about how chickens/ducks digest the chitin well enough to give a good answer on the bigger roaches. I assume that if they can handle the thick shells on a mealworm, they can probably handle the much more manageable shells on a dubia.

I'll get a photo but it doesn't show much more than egg crate and hiding roaches! I'm slowly building my colonies up, since all I've been using them for are to feed 3 tarantulas.. now that I have chickens and ducks, I'm on the lookout for large craigslist colonies to pick up

Huh, I never thought to raise roaches. My sister used to raise crickets for her bearded dragon. Fascinating. I couldn't do it though... The only thing, ONLY, that will get me to scream and run away like a stupid girl is a beetle. Roaches, waterbugs, the weird things with the pinchers I freak out. I would love to see a pic of an actual colony though. Do they have nests and such? What is the difference between what you have and say the roaches you would see in a house or apartment?

The difference between the roaches you would see in a house (german cockroaches are most common) and a dubia or turkistan is that the ones found in houses have had a chance to build up resistances to disease/poisons/toxins by interacting with humans for generations. By living near humans (rather than being raised in a sterile environment BY humans), they touch moldy things, and feces, and old food, etc.. that can make us, or our animals sick. My guess is if you raised a colony of german cockroaches for many generations and were to rid them of all the icky things they come into contact with... they would probably be just as healthy/safe to feed to our animals. They are all just cockroaches... it has to do with the environment they live in. I don't think a colony of dubias would survive most north american households. I wouldn't be surprised if turkistan roaches could, but I haven't really heard any issues with them, and they can't climb glass/slick plastic, nor have they been living alongside humans (at least in this part of the world) and built up any resistances to the poisons we use on all the bugs and critters we interact with every day. A German cockroach would put a turkistan to shame in any north american kitchen, any day

 

[poultry09]

Geese- 7 sebbies 4 of which are white, 2 gray,and one lavender- 2 american buffs-1 gray dewlap toulouse gandeer-1 buff african gander.
Ducks- 9 runners asorted colors- 5 misoclaneous ones
Chickens- 9 standard cochins-8 americanas
and one lop eared doe rabbit
And puppysitting 3 hyper little dogs for my aunt

 

[Iain Utah]

I have...
4 horses (race bred qh, paint, arab, and perch/arab x)
4 dogs (GSD, 2 aussies, and a boxer/am bulldog x)
2 matching black cats
3 fish in their own individual tanks (midas cichlid, jack dempsey, and oscar)
18 geese (african, utility toulouse, and buff & grey dewlap toulouse)