I knew I was a freak when...

I got excited to find a handful of cockroaches in my potting soil because it meant free tarantula food.

I've been wanting to give them a little more variety in their diet, but because I live in Florida, I can't have roaches shipped to me (illegal apparently). So I've been trying to find some cockroaches at work and home to give to them, but everyplace is just too clean! (I'm a neat freak) I have a small potted vegetable garden growing outside and I keep a bag of organic soil on the patio. When I moved it today, one BIG roach and 5 little ones scurried out. I got so excited I immediately dropped to the floor and started catching them. The T's LOVED it. They jumped on them very quickly. :)

LMAO!!! That is so funny I do the same thing... When the june bugs were out here I was catching them like crazy for our T's, one of my neighbors caught me one night and asked what I was doing, she knew we had T's so I wasnt too terribly embarrassed when I told her.

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Originally Posted by Mindibun

I got excited to find a handful of cockroaches in my potting soil because it meant free tarantula food.

I've been wanting to give them a little more variety in their diet, but because I live in Florida, I can't have roaches shipped to me (illegal apparently). So I've been trying to find some cockroaches at work and home to give to them, but everyplace is just too clean! (I'm a neat freak) I have a small potted vegetable garden growing outside and I keep a bag of organic soil on the patio. When I moved it today, one BIG roach and 5 little ones scurried out. I got so excited I immediately dropped to the floor and started catching them. The T's LOVED it. They jumped on them very quickly. :)

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T's will love just about anything you put in the tank. Food is food. Although I would never bring food from outside in due to different pesticides and such.

Sorry Minibund, but outside bugs are a no-no for our captive friends. Pesticides, parasites, etc are some of the common concerns.

Yeah I would be careful with wild feeders. But funny story though lol. :gj:

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Originally Posted by kjhowland

Sorry Minibund, but outside bugs are a no-no for our captive friends. Pesticides, parasites, etc are some of the common concerns.

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yes! never feed anything wild unless you want parasites!! nematodes are not good and you may be able to pass them along through feeders!!

Why does everyone always feel the need to preach about pesticides? I'm sure most everyone has to know about them by now, right?

Anyway, I wouldn't have fed the roaches if I'd found them outside. But they were living in my organic potting soil bag. *I* am the one that takes care of the garden out there and I don't use any pesticides. On top of that, we don't have pesticides outside our building. There's just "wild" trees behind us.

i be more worried about parasites.

I didn't think bugs could carry parasites. :confused:

And if they do, and today's feeder roaches are just far-removed offspring of wild roaches, then who's to say they do not also have parasites? Suppose the roach supplier doesn't keep up with cleaning the tubs - couldn't they get parasites that way?

I'm not trying to be negative - I'm glad you brought up something I didn't know. It just seems that bugs are bugs, regardless of where they came from, and they could always be carrying something. Y'never know, right?