Turkistan Roaches

[Justus85]

I just got done reading about Turkistan roaches (blatta lateralis) and they seem like an excellent feeder for beardies. Thing is I have never heard of them mentioned here on the forum. All you ever hear about is hissers and dubia. Does anybody have any input on the turkistan roach?

 

[zebraflavencs]

Yeah.. they are red and FAST !
They climb, they flutter fly... and did I mention... They are FAST ?

 

[crypticdragons]

I just got done reading about Turkistan roaches (blatta lateralis) and they seem like an excellent feeder for beardies. Thing is I have never heard of them mentioned here on the forum. All you ever hear about is hissers and dubia. Does anybody have any input on the turkistan roach?

I had a colony of turks for a while. They are sold as a non-climbing non-flying species. Then I started finding adults and nymphs in my dubia bin and in my home. Appears they can climb (no matter what the advertisements say). And as janie said they are ungodly fast. They just werent the roach for me. My hissers climb but they are nice and slow and are easy to keep contained as long as you are vigilant with re-covering your upper lip of your tank with vaseline periodically.

 

[Gail]

I had turks for awhile too, never had any problems with them climbing but the males were pretty good about fluttering out of the tanks if I didn't keep the lid on. I never could get them to breed very well for me but the dragons really loved them, so did the tarantulas.

 

[beardielover17]

I used turks. I never had escapees and my dragons loved the challenge to catch them. I never seen them climb anything other than a rough surface either

 

[ladyknite]

oooooooooooooh i ran a little test with these things two summers ago.
I had ordered about 50,000 of them in preparation for hatchies.
They looked too much like a dang roach to me.
I kept them in the regular sterilite containers with smooth sides, set up the normal way.

i took a large kiddie pool and filled it with water. I set a small kiddie pool in the middle and weighted it down.

36 hours later and there were around 500 roaches doin the dead mans back stroke.

That was the end of me and Turks

 

[beardielover17]

Ahh see my paranoia of roaches made me take extra measures. Regardless of whether I had dubia or the turks I went ahead and put a weather strip along the lip of the bin so there was absolutely no gap between the lid and the bin and I also had the top 3 inches all greased up with roach barrier. I even went as far as gluing the screen and then taping it with duct tape. So yeah, maybe that's why I never had escapees? lol

 

[Justus85]

50k gina? Damn that musta been expensive. Btw for those interested in Dubia but can't find any; Mulberry Farms has a deal where if you buy 4 or more you can get 25+ count mixed cups for 9.50$ which is the best rate I've seen. Roachranch guy has the best prices normally but the only downside to him right now is he has like NO stock leftover from the cricket epidemic.

 

[srabeardie]

Umph! Flying roaches....no thanks

 

[Craiger]

I even went as far as gluing the screen and then taping it with duct tape. So yeah, maybe that's why I never had escapees? lol

Geez....seeing this, it seems so obvious to me. That's exactly what I should have done with the inside of my dubia tub with the screen mesh glued to the bottom. It was to make cleaning out frass so much easier on me. Once the glue bond came loose and I ended up with little dubias running around in the frass tub, I did away with this as a viable solution.

Basically, the idea is this....

You know that plastic mesh you buy in the craft department? That's what I was using....and it worlked perfectly for quite a while. The mesh was large enough for all the frass to fall through, yet small enough to keep nymphs out of the bottom tub.

I cut the bottom out of one tub, glued the mesh to the inside, and set that tub inside another just like it with some 1-1.5 inch spacers between the two tubs (one or two across the middle to support the weight of the roaches and whatever was used for hides). A lid with the top cutout and screen mesh glued to it was used to help with adequate ventilation and attached to the inside tub, of course.

I think I'm going right back to that option as it was so easy to clean up.

 

[zebraflavencs]

Sounds quite viable ! I like the fact that this will keep the frass from irritating your allergies, Craig.

It is also fairly inexpensive too..
Novel idea.. Might have to adopt that trick !

 

[Craiger]

Thanks. I used to highly recommend it to anybody that bought roaches from me. Anybody that saw it went right home to make one for themself.

 

[zebraflavencs]

I can see why !
Marvelous idea !