Of the 80 animals we currently have here at Zoology, 8 are ectotherms that are fed live insects as part of their diet. Just like most creatures, they enjoy variety in their diets and the sheer quantity they eat in a week is quite a lot!
While we purchase some insects, we also breed some types at the zoo and their care, just like all the animals here, require dedicated and specialized care. We house most of our feeders in bins and totes, which we clean every day. Just like humans and other animals, you are what you eat. So to provide healthy insects to our ectotherms, we have to feed our insects a healthy diet or fresh fruits, veggies, and greens every day. This easy detail gives us the confidence that the insects our ectotherms eat are the healthiest source of food we can provide. The time it takes to maintain our insect populations is just part of the job, but having to restock from outside sources is less than ideal for a several reasons. Because of this, we decided to keep breeding populations of some feeder bugs on site.
We first started with mealworms. Keeping a breeding population of mealworms is not very complicated, and we’ve refined out own process for doing so over the years. This year we were given the opportunity to finally set up our own “roach ranch”, thanks to our ectotherm veterinarian! Their clinic had their own roach ranch population suddenly grow very rapidly and offered to provide us some breeding dubia roaches of our own. We followed their instructions to get our own ranch up and running.
The term “roach ranch” is just a more fun way to say breeding colony, and its fairly easy to set up as long as you can get your hands on the breeding dubia roaches. There are several ways to go about doing it, but we keep ours in a solid plastic tub with a hole is cut in the top, which we covered with tightly woven mesh for ventilation. Adhesive heating pads hooked up to a thermostat are mounted on the sides to maintain their preferred temperature. The roach population also have large cardboard cartons to do their roach things in, as well as a fresh source of water, protein rich feed, and a selection of fresh produce offered every day. Pretty sweet digs for a roach!
Thanks to our roach ranch, we are able to ensure that we always have dubia roaches on hand for feeding. This is one of several ways that having your own breeding colony of feeder insects is beneficial. On top of not worrying about running out, we can also ensure that our insects are from a good source and packed full of nutrients. There are many great exotic shops that are trusted sources of feeder insects, but between the travel to get to them and potential supply chain delays associated with live feeder transport, having our own breeding populations is just easier!
