# Roaches ???



## santoury (May 3, 2011)

I do not seem to see many references to people using roaches - is this because they are too large ? What about newborns / hatchlings? 

At any rate, if there are any people who raise any roaches, I'd love to hear your input, and what kinds you keep, and why. 

I have a mixed tank (yes, yes, I know...) of Hissers, and 2 species of Blaps. It was more of a fun thing than anything else - but based on the success, and joy I've gotten from this 10-gallon community tank, I've decided I want to expand to other roaches!


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## eldalote2 (Jun 3, 2009)

It mainly depends on what frogs you are keeping.

I only feed nymphs to my terribilis because I feel like tincs and leucs would be too small. 

My concern is that the roaches will escape while feeding and grow large in the frog tank and eventually bother the frogs. 

I also do not feed roaches as a staple diet. It may be a once a month treat.


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## santoury (May 3, 2011)

What type ?


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## Gert-Jan (Oct 4, 2008)

Be carefull with them, i know a bunch of guy who fed roaches to their PDF's and
eventualy the roaches became a plague!

Several VIV's had to be rebuild/empty'd and thoroughly cleaned to get rid of the little bastards.


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## Eric Walker (Aug 22, 2009)

"If" I were gonna feed some larger darts ( like terribilis ) roach nymphs I would say that
_ Blatta lateralis_ would be a good choice. they have a much thinner exoskeleton than many other roaches and the nymphs are pretty small as far as roachs go. I kepted them for a few years for some of my lizards. they breed fast. But they are wicked fast when they get loose.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

May sound gross to some, but could you just cut the heads off of them. Living in the good ol state of Florida roaches are a norm. I usually nail them with some blow darts and feed them to the Tarantulas. Anyways back to the subject at hand, if you cut the heads off of them they still move around for a min or two, which would trigger the movement need for the frogs to become interested in them. If the frogs do not go for it you can always remove them from the tank when they die. Just a suggestion


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## Melo (Mar 6, 2011)

Ive bred dubia roaches when i was keeping my chameleon, she was small when i had the roaches and i could feed her the newly hatched babies, i would only feed the roaches to large darts like terribilis...maybe azureus depending on how early you can find the roach babies..they are very good at hiding haha


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## Brotherly Monkey (Jul 20, 2010)

a good way to sift out the young is to punch a hole in the lid of a jar, that corresponds to the size roach you want, and place that in the colony with a bit of food.

If they're climbers you need to put a smear of vaseline across the top, witch tends to make things much messier, but still doable


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## varanoid (Jan 21, 2011)

dom said:


> Living in the good ol state of Florida roaches are a norm. I usually nail them with some blow darts and feed them to the Tarantulas.


Hahaha I'm getting a hoot out of picturing this. You really need to post a video or something. Your darts are laced with poison from your frogs right? JK.


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## Rain_Frog (Apr 27, 2004)

I'm going to warn you all-- I once kept B. lateralis and I found adult roaches that escaped my firebellied toad tank and ended up in the neighboring mantella tank on my shelf.

Roaches can squeeze through very tiny gaps. I have no idea how they climbed out and got into the other vivarium. I also found roaches that I fed out months ago that were nearly full grown. 

It gave me the shivers. I have gone back to feeding out crickets and never will I return to roaches.


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## dom (Sep 23, 2007)

varanoid said:


> Hahaha I'm getting a hoot out of picturing this. You really need to post a video or something. Your darts are laced with poison from your frogs right? JK.


One shot from across the bathroom, you can see the juice dripping out!


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## santoury (May 3, 2011)

That dart is something else! 

So, I'm looking for sources for some of the more exotic species - not just the usual. Who's good? I would only want 2 or 3 of any given species, not 100, for obvious reasons


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

im very knowledgeable about roaches, and blaptica dubias is what you are looking for

everything people mentionned here as a con, can't and won't happen with dubias
they won't breed in the tank
they won't escape the tank as they don't climb...
they're much slower than lateralis which is proportionnally talking, one of the fastest living thing btw 
they don't bite, cry, fly, STINK, name it!
they're from far, the best all around feeder, and i know many many long time froggers (10-20+years) who never use supplements while having a staple diet of roaches and great success with frogs that lives 10years and more.
you can adjust the breeding speed with fresher or warmer temperature
they're actually one of the slowest breeder within roaches family, and the reason is that they don't lay eggs which is the same reason they don't stink
if you drop one of the floor, it will probably just stay there instead of running away instantly like lateralis and many other type of roaches!
if you live in the north, they probably couldn't even survive in your place as they're 100% tropical specie

their size ranges from 1/8 to over 2 inches so this is good for terribilis, maybe big tincs, galac, citron?
my whole herp collection have dubias, xept my baby terribs, and I must say it is more than fantastic
i have reeds, treefrogs, big frogs, terrestrial frogs, toads, geckos, tarantulas, scorps, beardies, fishes, turtle
even my dogs and cat will have dubias, I keep trying with my bird and gf tho...


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## McBobs (Apr 26, 2007)

Honestly, I think that roaches for darts are much more hassle than payoff. Even the nymphs get much too large way too quick and they're hard to separate from the adults which are WAY too big. Bean beetles on the other hand are much easier as they don't get too big for most of the larger darts. The only downside to them is that it seems like the darts don't like them as much and they take some time getting the darts used to them.

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## eldalote2 (Jun 3, 2009)

Maybe not as a payoff for only darts, but for us with other reptiles, it is definitely easier than crickets! 

B. Discoidalis are also a REALLY neat roach. Mostly the same as Dubias, just a little larger as adults. The nymphs would be ok to feed up until the second(?) instar i believe. Just a really freakin' cool roach! 

Dom, you should have brought that toy to the meet!


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

roaches are from far the easiest to breed feeder I have... MUCH easier than beatles and we all know how easy they are! 
basically I clean the tub once a year, and toss some veggies rip or left over everynow and then, a bit of cat food and we good! 
no water needed...
they aren't complicated to separate once you have the right method
I personnal pick one of the egg crate, and tap on it over a bowl (I use bowl feeding methods with these since they burrow in substrat, which is the real and only downside to me)
all the small nymph will fall in the bowl and I just toss the bowl in any viv I want.... this takes me around 10sec from the tub, into the vivarium; more than 30 nymph ready to get eaten.

The real problem is what to do with adults? You definately don't want a BIG colony... I guess you could keep around 10 female and get rid of the roaches that get too big, and once a year, you let another 20roaches reach adult and be the next breeder for the next year (they live a bit less than 2 years)

bean beetle are not a good staple so you can't really make a comparison
altho I wouldn't use dubias for staple for PDF, I think using them as a treat with a tiny colony (inside a shoebox) would be very doable, MUCH easier than you think, and very very profitable to any darts who will have them

I haven't tried yet, but you know, animals know what's good for them! If you manage to get the frog(pdf) to eat just a few, chances are that the frog will crave for them afterwards, im pretty sure!
it worked with basically EVERY herp I have.. no jokes! I just haven't tried this with PDF as they're all too small now
I got a turtle that has been fed pellets in its water dish for 4 years... the owner told me he tried everything and never got the turtle to eat ANYTHING else
It took me a while, but I manage to trick the turtle into eating a few small roaches spreaded around the pellets... a few days later, the turtle would climb the glass when seeing me, begging for nothing else than roaches  same goes for the beardie and like I say, all my animals will readyly have them


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

FwoGiZ said:


> bean beetle are not a good staple so you can't really make a comparison


 
On what data are you basing this statement? 

Ed


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

FwoGiZ said:


> they won't breed in the tank


Really? Since when? Frog enclosures provide all of thier needs... 



FwoGiZ said:


> they won't escape the tank as they don't climb...


Except for the nymphs which can climb silicone and escape by climbing the corners of the enclosures. 



FwoGiZ said:


> they're from far, the best all around feeder, and i know many many long time froggers (10-20+years) who never use supplements while having a staple diet of roaches and great success with frogs that lives 10years and more.


I'm going to throw the BS flag here. Roaches as well as other insects have incorrect calcium to phosphorus ratios one of the more common causes of "MBD". This is even before we get to the issues of vitamin A, and D3.


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

FwoGiZ said:


> everything people mentionned here as a con, can't and won't happen with dubias
> they won't breed in the tank
> they won't escape the tank as they don't climb...


They can and will breed in the tank. I breed dubias as well and find babies in my beardie enclosures regularly when I leave large nymphs in there after a feeding. They will morph out, feed on driftwood and breed.

Also, they can and will climb silicone joints and textured surfaces, such as Rubbermaid tubs. They will not climb slick surfaces, such as glass or Sterilite tubs.

That being said, I love roaches, and am able to feed newborns to mantellas.

Be careful when you make claims such as "they won't breed in the tank," and "they don't climb."


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

Ed, you beat me to it!


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

of course an enclosure provides all they need....
it takes almost 6monthes for a TINY roach to reach maturity, and 2 inches size
if you can't spot them during that time, and you let them breed..... well i dunno what to say really! 

i've never had a single dubias escape via the silicone thingy because these roaches will instantly try to burrow and dig, not go up and climb like many other species
i've spotted a few climbing foliage for more heat, tho...
let's say a tiny roach manage to slip thru, well I strongly doubt it goes anywhere where it can survive several monthes before reaching maturity, then finding another adult roach

they are ovoviviparous or whatever the word is, and if you leave a pregnant female in there, it will spit babies.
I personally don't even feed females much, and when I do, I hand feed them
I bowl feed some of the nymph before a few of them manage to escape the 1inch high bowl and most of them will hide under that same ceramic bowl...
Leaving adults roach in an enclosure is definately asking for trouble but why would you do that? I find it easy to either just hand feed, or at least, take them out if your beardie isn't finding them

no dubias ever climbed rubbermaids at my place, and I have tried with 3or 4 brand... so yeah BS flag here too i guess, unless you just don't have dubias but something else

I Guess I should have been more specific tho; its EASY to not let them breed in an enclosure because of SO many facts, and I have yet to see one climbing

AFAIK calcium/phos ratio is one if not the closest to 1:1 among a lot of the feeders I know... before throwing the BS flag, you can ask me where to find these guys I am talking about, some of them were on fatfrogs before the forum closed some years ago, and you can still find some of them over frogfreaks.com

I am very aware that chitin is overrated... but are you telling me feeding a staple of bean weevils every day won't be harmful for darts???? I personally have never had problems regarding this, because I've never fed them as a staple and always thought no one did because of the fact(or are you telling me its yet another myth?) that it could cause impaction in the long run
i am not blaming chitin here, I don't really care what it is or how you call it, these bugs are VERY hard shelled compared to flies
once again, i've never personally had problem with this
i know you are very knowledgeable bout these technicalities so if I am wrong and it is conspiracy vs the weevils, tell me so I can stop wasting my burst colonies ;p

Good to know mantella will have them tho, madagascariensis are on my list 

All what I am saying here, is from personal experience as I've bred well over several 10s of thousands of these bugs


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

I'm speaking of the brand Rubbermaid, not the generic term for the container. Specifically the blue Rubbermaid Roughneck brand bins, I used the 18 gallon bins for about 6 months because I got a great deal on a bunch of them. I regularly watched nymphs climb the sides. I got tired of applying vaseline and so switched to the Sterilite brand clear plastic bins. I imagine the clear Rubbermaid bins would work fine as well.


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

I will have to check this out, I have a blue tub as my main colony, not sure its rubbermaid ... if it is a bit too rough, they might very well be able to climb indeed
i guess i got lucky with all those I tried... but yeah, finding another bin is the way to go, your not suposed to need vaseline with these bugs

what kind of mantella had dubias? these are pretty small... i guess they like larger food than new world pdf


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

Only really the juvies I've seen climbing and only in the Rubbermaid Roughneck bins. I just used vaseline to stop escapees.

I have fed newborn roaches to ebenaui and aurantiaca.


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## McBobs (Apr 26, 2007)

Wouldn't hand feeding roaches make them a lot more time consuming and tedious to maintain than bean beetles?


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## p.terribilis (Jan 19, 2009)

I'd have to agree with McBob with the use of bean beetles for PDFs. IMO, bean beetles (and fruit flies) are the easiest feeders for frogs. 

My experience with roaches is rather limited though. I only used the giant hissing roaches to feed my chameleon as a treat when the colony got too big. My wife hated the smell though, so the roaches had to go.


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

I hand feed beardie, pacmans, WTF and other big animals because I like doing so, and it saves a lot of problems regarding adults
if you want to feed darts, it takes around 10sec to serve them, but if you have a tiny colony, it would indeed be a bit more laborious but not much... to me, it would be worth it tho
care wise, roaches in general are hard to beat

we re argueing over which is better... altho we all do know diversity is the key, right?
it easyly is arguable to be the easiest to care for feeder, one of the damn good nutritive value out there, but might be a bit more laborious when it comes to feeding them(compared to beetles & flies), and a VERY bad reputation,
but in the end, it seems it works really fine for quite some people so i keep my position that he should definately try it specially if he had the ideas.

I never had roach crash while I had FF crashes
beetles dies... then comes back 1 month later! can't rely on them unless you have many different cultures
but they are indeed easier to feed once everything else is done.... there is nothing much to do for roaches tho!
just make sure you get dubias 

I personally have no disgust at all for my bugs and it simply is my favorite allaround feeder altho I still breed many other bugs for diversity, and i do keep dusting my stuffs with repashy ICB, supermin


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## McBobs (Apr 26, 2007)

FwoGiZ said:


> I hand feed beardie, pacmans, WTF and other big animals because I like doing so,


Okay. This makes more sense. I thought you meant that you were handfeeding the roaches their food and not that you were handfeeding roaches TO the beardies and other animals. 

All I could see was you with a pair of tweezers and talking in a baby voice to your roaches while you tried feeding them.

Got it now.


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

LOL
sorry for my bad english ahah.... frenchy here heh 
Feeding roaches is nothing simplier... when I rip carrots, or prepare broccoli, i just dumb everything in the corner.... tadam!
no water needed
add some cat food, tropical fish flakes for more prots
i rarely add fruits as that is what makes a stinky roach colony..but hey even them have their treats every now and then  pineapple rips, mangos rip

SOMETIMES i sing lullababy for them..... jk ;p


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

My roaches love citrus, orange and grapefruit halves. Plus it makes the bin smell nice


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## eldalote2 (Jun 3, 2009)

I second that on the citrus. I only feed as much as what they can eat in 2 or so days to avoid smell and mold when I feed wet (fruit/veg) foods. 

Bugs have to be the 4th coolest thing about the hobby.

1st is frogs,
2nd plants
3rd building vivs 

IMHO


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

FwoGiZ said:


> I Guess I should have been more specific tho; its EASY to not let them breed in an enclosure because of SO many facts, and I have yet to see one climbing


When I get a chance I'll post a picture of the baited glueboard in my basement.. 



FwoGiZ said:


> AFAIK calcium/phos ratio is one if not the closest to 1:1 among a lot of the feeders I know... before throwing the BS flag, you can ask me where to find these guys I am talking about, some of them were on fatfrogs before the forum closed some years ago, and you can still find some of them over frogfreaks.com


This is why I asked you for your reference as all of the nutritional literature indicates the direct opposite of what you are claiming (see for example http://ardeajournal.natuurinfo.nl/ardeapdf/a82-299-314.pdf). There are also no published values for Blaptica dubia, that I can find in the nutritional literature. The values for other roaches all run around 1:2.5 ratio of calcium to phosphorus so that is very different than the claim of 1 to 1. (see for example http://nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf ). This is before we also get to the issue that there are also studies in anurans where increased levels of calcium supplied orally resulted in no increase in calcium in the blood unless also provided with vitamin D3. 




FwoGiZ said:


> I am very aware that chitin is overrated... but are you telling me feeding a staple of bean weevils every day won't be harmful for darts???? I personally have never had problems regarding this, because I've never fed them as a staple and always thought no one did because of the fact(or are you telling me its yet another myth?) that it could cause impaction in the long run


One of the things that continually amazes me about the hobby is how often they ignore the fact that the normal diet of dendrobatids is high in invertebrates that are considered to be very high in chitin.. specifically ants and beetles. If you look at the diet studies on the frogs (see for example http://200.31.31.2/Recursos/publicaciones/Cientifica/Toft1981.pdf ) you can see that in auratus, 85% of the diet in the sampled frogs consisted of ants and beetles.. They are considered as a group to be specialists on ants which means that they are adapted to dealing with high chitin insects. 



FwoGiZ said:


> i am not blaming chitin here, I don't really care what it is or how you call it, these bugs are VERY hard shelled compared to fliesonce again, i've never personally had problem with this
> i know you are very knowledgeable bout these technicalities so if I am wrong and it is conspiracy vs the weevils, tell me so I can stop wasting my burst colonies ;p


See above....


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

I think the issue of chitin is lost on most people. Herps do not naturally look at an invertebrate and decide against eating it because it has too much chitin, thats a human advent.

With proper supplementation, even the "too chitinous" or "nutrient devoid" feeders are just fine in most cases, save of course for inverts such as butterworms or waxworms that are high in fat.

High chitin does not equate to low nutrition.


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## FwoGiZ (Jul 8, 2008)

1:2 is exactly what I have in my source too

http://www.elevageslisard.com/resou..._Tableau_des_valeurs_nutritionnelles_2010.pdf

crickets, silks and waxworms would all be around 1:7
FF 1:9
meal 1:13
and
earthworms would be the only nearer to 1:1 than roach at 1:0.7

so unless my source is trash, or there is something I don't understand, i get it that roach at 1:2 are pretty damn near 1:1 if you compare to all the other feeders out there
i've seen these very similar numbers at some other sources but i dont jot them all down

you have glueboard filled with blaptica dubia in your basement?!? you need a cane toad loose in that basement!!
I know frogs eats a lot of ants and beetles, but from what i've seen, they all seem much softer than weevils.. these bugs are almost tiny rocks
i would think a lot of frogs eat roaches steadily in the nature too... pdf are more specific, but most bigger frogs and treefrogs will just have about anything they can catch

are there people who have had frogs on a staple of weevils? im really curious as how it works out for them 

i am also curious to know the nutritional value of weevils, if anyone can find this


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## Golden State Mantellas (Mar 12, 2011)

FwoGiZ said:


> are there people who have had frogs on a staple of weevils? im really curious as how it works out for them


I believe Ed does...


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## Ed (Sep 19, 2004)

FwoGiZ said:


> 1:2 is exactly what I have in my source too


I can't get your reference to increase large enough for me to read it and see if they have references for where they got the data. Actually a ratio of 1:2 of calcium to phosphorus is a terrible ratio and typical for insects. If unsupplemented, it is a precondition for "MBD" as it provides too little calcium with respect phosphorus in the diet. 

The references I provided are the standard used for calculation out nutritonal needs in a variety of references including Amphibian Medicine and Captive Husbandry and Mader's Reptile Medicine and Surgery. 




FwoGiZ said:


> so unless my source is trash, or there is something I don't understand, i get it that roach at 1:2 are pretty damn near 1:1 if you compare to all the other feeders out there


No, 1:2 is not close to 1:1. 1:2 means that there is one calcium molecule for every two phosphate molecules. This is exactly why it is imbalanced and if fed as a sole or major portion of the diet a precondition for MBD. The ratio should be at least 1:1 and preferably 1.5 to 1 or 2:1 of calcium to phosphate. 

Are you sure you are calculating them correctly as I noted all of the major sources for this nutritional data do not overal agree with your "source". I would also be interested in seeing the diet fed to those invertebrates before testing. 

In the main accepted references wax worms are 1:5.6 calciumhosphorus
Fruit flies are 1:10.5, mealworms at 1:7 and earthworms are 1.7 to 0.9 (which other than isopods and millipedes the only positive calcium to phosphorus ratio) of calcium to phosphorus. 



FwoGiZ said:


> I know frogs eats a lot of ants and beetles, but from what i've seen, they all seem much softer than weevils..


Do you have any values for crush tests to compare them? Why are you considering them harder than the heads of the consumed ants? See last paragraph... 


FwoGiZ said:


> these bugs are almost tiny rocks i would think a lot of frogs eat roaches steadily in the nature too... pdf are more specific, but most bigger frogs and treefrogs will just have about anything they can catch


Except wild frogs can uptake calcium from thier enviroment as well as calcium ingested either by accident while capturing prey or on, or in the prey, as well as having access to D3 via exposure to UVB. 



FwoGiZ said:


> are there people who have had frogs on a staple of weevils? im really curious as how it works out for them


Just fine. 



FwoGiZ said:


> i am also curious to know the nutritional value of weevils, if anyone can find this


I have yet to see an analysis of the weevils to date. 

Why is hardness a factor considering that the weevils are ingested whole? They don't have to chew them and the segments of the exoskeleton will seperate in the digestive system at the joints of the beetle allowing it to be passed readily just like the flies. The indigestiability of chitin has been underestimated by up to a factor of seven times, instead what was percieved in older sources and instead has since been indentifed as a major source of protein in the insects (up to 7 times) as well as a source of fiber (which helps with gut transition..).


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