Question: Are Roaches Bad food?

So the other day, another axie keeper on ig told me that roaches have too much shell and that they arent good axolotl food
is this true?? mine eat mostly fattened dubia or lobster roaches and love them! i occassionally offer earthworms, which are also readily accepted
they cant be worse than mealworms can they?

Earthworms should be a staple. Mealworms, roached an other beetles have a lot of hard exoskeleton than can't be digested, and if fed too often can cause impaction just like gravel. But as a once a fortnight treat they are fine - as are waxworms, crickets, shrimp etc.

auntiejude said:

Earthworms should be a staple. Mealworms, roached an other beetles have a lot of hard exoskeleton than can't be digested, and if fed too often can cause impaction just like gravel. But as a once a fortnight treat they are fine - as are waxworms, crickets, shrimp etc.

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will be getting worms next time im at petsmart
i can catch tons of them in summer but the ground is frozen currently

seagull said:

will be getting worms next time im at petsmart
i can catch tons of them in summer but the ground is frozen currently

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DO NIT GET YOUR WORMS FROM PET SMART! My axolotl hated them! Try to find evergreen night crawlers or big reds, they are the best. My axy loves them where as he rejected the pets art worms. The ones from petsmart are sour apparently, you want to buy pink fat worms and at pets art they sell skiny red worms

anonymousaxolol said:

DO NIT GET YOUR WORMS FROM PET SMART! My axolotl hated them! Try to find evergreen night crawlers or big reds, they are the best. My axy loves them where as he rejected the pets art worms. The ones from petsmart are sour apparently, you want to buy pink fat worms and at pets art they sell skiny red worms

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That's simply because it was a different type of worm lol, it's normal for Axies to refuse red wigglers but some will eat them without a fuss.

anonymousaxolol said:

DO NIT GET YOUR WORMS FROM PET SMART! My axolotl hated them! Try to find evergreen night crawlers or big reds, they are the best. My axy loves them where as he rejected the pets art worms. The ones from petsmart are sour apparently, you want to buy pink fat worms and at pets art they sell skiny red worms

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burrito is not picky
she tries to eat the tweezers i offer food with
tortilla is a different story tho...

Roaches are completely safe for axolotls. Many species of roaches are soft bodied. For example, Pycnoscelus surinamensis, Panchlora nivea, Paratemnopteryx couloniana, and Blatta lateralis. All these roaches are excellent food for axolotls, Tiger salamanders, spotted salamanders etc. Even my crested newts will hunt them down and eat them from the waters surface. Even Appropriate sized dubia roaches can be fed. Axolotls and other salamanders eat plenty of insects with hard exoskeletons in the wild. Do you think they just eat earthworms? That thinking is ludicrous. Giant water bugs, back swimmers, water boatmen, dragon fly larvae, grasshoppers, worms, cane fly larvae, small minnows, and even other axolotls are going to make up their natural diet. If they were not capable of digesting all that they couldn't and wouldn't exist. It's not like they go to Walmart for Canadian Crawlers when they are hungry. If you are still worried with dubia roaches, you can just pick out the white, recently shed dubia roaches that are still soft to feed. The important thing when feeding is giving a varied diet to all your animals. You will find healthier and better colored animals if you do.

thank u!
i dont keep p. nivea though i used to
i have n. cinerea and b. dubia
all my animals love them

Everything I have read about Dubia roaches is that they are safe for amphibians and most other animals. Their shell is actually very soft unlike a lot of other insects especially mealworms. There is a lot of research out there that supports their use. I was raising mine to feed to fire belly toads and salamanders. A lot of people on another forum I am on won't even feed crickets more often than a weekly snack but will feed dubia regularly.

There really is too much info for me to regurgitate it all, much easier to just look it up. I do recommend, as most others have always told me, to always feed a variety of foods regardless of how perfect any one food is promoted to be.

My one concern would be that roaches will eat LOT of things and there is a possibility that some of them may not be good for axolotls. I would research what foods are safe to gutload roaches with so that they do not harm the axolotl. I think I remember reading somewhere that grains should not be fed for gutload and a couple other things but it was a while ago so I could be mistaken.