20 (Excellent) Reasons to Try Dubia Roaches

There are numerous reasons to choose Dubia roaches for your animals. Broadly, their benefits are many and their costs are few. They don’t force you to compromise the way other feeders do. You can have a uniquely healthy feeder that’s also widely available, that your animal will likely enjoy, that’s easy to feed and keep, and so on.

(Skip straight to our top 20 reasons below)

Perhaps the most important benefit of Dubia roaches is that they’re nutritionally superior to other feeders. They’re arguably the most nutritious insect available for reptiles, amphibians, arachnids, and other insectivores. While the occasional bug may have more of nutrient X or Y, the fact is that food is a package deal. You have to take the bad along with the good, and Dubia roaches have more of the good stuff animals need and less of the bad stuff they don’t.

In fact, for a bug packed with so many important nutrients, the lack of a downside is notable. In this way, Dubia roaches are quite unique among feeder insects. Even more remarkable is that the extensive list of Dubia roach dietary benefits is just the beginning. In addition to nutritional superiority, animals tend to love eating them. They’re also easy to keep. They’re also long-lived. And they have a digestive tract that seems made for gut loading.

And this is just the beginning. There are so many more reasons to love Dubia roaches…

17 more, actually.

If you’re considering trying Dubia roaches but aren’t familiar with them, or if you’ve heard of them but aren’t convinced yet, this information is for you. Our experience with Dubia roaches has been overwhelmingly positive, and we want to share with you what we’ve seen, experienced, and learned about this uniquely nutritious insect.

Dubia roach nutrition is outstanding

Let’s start with a quote:

“Dubia roaches are a better feeder species than most other insects for pets. They are popular for feeding reptiles and amphibians because they contain a high amount of protein (a high-quality herp food source). They are soft-bodied and have more meat, for example, than crickets, making them an excellent food item, for example, for arachnids and small lizards.”
– Ahmad Alamer (pdf) (external link)

We agree. Nutritionally, Dubia roaches are among the most nutritious options. They’re not only packed with lots of good things animals need for good health, but they deliver these things with less downside than other insects. For example, they’re relatively high in protein, calcium, and minerals. They’re also low in fat and chitin. Comparatively speaking, they’re also high in meat vs. shell and have low water content. By weight, their nutrition is superior. It’s common for animals eating around 10 crickets per day to consume just two or three similarly sized Dubia roaches. This has been our own experience, and we’ve heard similar reports from other herp owners.

You can see why this might be true in the data. The following image is from our feeder insect head-to-head, which compares 20 of the most common feeders with the Dubia roach.

So back to the issue at hand…

Should you try Dubia roaches? Probably, yes, and here’s why:

1. Protein

At nearly 22%, Dubia roaches are among the top feeder insects in terms of protein content. On a dry matter basis (DMB), they are 54% protein. This easily surpasses the upper minimum recommended protein intake for captive insectivorous animals according to the Merck veterinary manual (external link). It is generally accepted that insectivorous reptiles, for example, get no less than 30% to 50% dietary protein.

We believe replicating the natural diet of wild insectivores is the best way to promote good health among captive ones. Quality, high-protein insects are not a luxury. They’re a necessity. The scientific literature on the nutritional content of insects as feed sources is a significant contributor to the body of research in this area. This is mainly because zoos have a financial incentive to design the healthiest diets they can for their animals. You may be surprised by the number of companies that sell exotic animal feed to zoos. With profit comes funding for research, and researchers in the field of animal nutrition routinely cite a high-quality protein source as one of their top priorities for captive insectivores. Dubia roaches meet their standard.

2. Nutrition density

You can think of water as a nutrient delivered to your animal by feeder insects, or you can think of it as a lost opportunity to consume other nutrients.

Day-to-day, we want our animals to consume as many growth and health-promoting nutrients as possible. Water is among these nutrients. Feeder insects play a crucial role in the hydration of insectivores, but our animals receive sufficient water regardless of whether they eat Dubia roaches, crickets, or mealworms. If we have the unfortunate opportunity of encountering an emergency situation where an animal refuses to drink and becomes dehydrated, we can switch to high-water feeders like silkworms and crickets.

However, we could also gut load Dubia roaches with high-water-content foods, such as fruits or vegetables. Apples and carrots – both healthy foods Dubia roaches love – are 85%+ water. Dubia roaches can consume at least twice their body weight in food, making them a highly effective vehicle for delivering nutrients. We have successfully managed reptile dehydration situations in this way. This gets into the topic of gut loading, which we cover in more detail later.

For now, though, we want to feed our animals more meat per ounce of insect ingested. This is also why we tend to prefer gross nutrient content as a measure of insect nutrition to dry material basis (DMB). DMB would be a better measure if all insects were the same size and had the same dry matter-to-water ratio, but they aren’t, and they don’t. In fact, the differences between insects are a big part of what defines them as feeders. These differences are often profound. We find it much more useful to think in terms of nutrition in the context of what’s actually eaten. Consuming one thing means that something else was not consumed, and we want to fill this limited space with as much nutrition as possible. This means feeding nutrient-dense insects. That describes the Dubia roach perfectly.

3. Chitin

Chitin is what adds structural rigidity to an arthropod’s hard exoskeleton. It’s fibrous and indigestible. It offers some benefits to reptiles and amphibians, but it can cause digestive problems in some animals when consumed in excess. Beyond this potential for gastric distress, it isn’t harmful per se. But like water, chitin represents a lost opportunity to consume something healthier in an animal’s normal day-to-day life. Something more nutritious. All things equal, the more chitin your animals eat, the fewer essential nutrients they get. They require a moderate amount of chitin, but not a lot.

Of all the feeders for which chitin data is available, Dubia roaches have the least, with just 3.5% of total body weight. For comparison, locusts are comprised of 20% chitin, and waxworms are 13%. Dubia roaches not only supply more nutrients per ounce than these other feeders, but more of that dry matter is the good, healthy stuff, such as minerals that promote health, and less of the other stuff that doesn’t. We consider that a win-win.

4. Gutloading

One of the Dubia roach’s unique features is a very long digestive tract. They are well-adapted to life on the nutrient-poor rainforest floor, where decaying wood, rotting leaves, and other detritus are their primary food sources. In the wild, fruits and vegetables are a luxury, along with occasional dead insects or other small animals.

This might deter other less hearty insects, but not Blaptica dubia. It is a highly evolved scavenger. It doesn’t let a low-nutrient environment slow it down.

To deal with food scarcity, Dubia roaches evolved special cells in their guts called myocytes. Myocytes house a species of cellulose-digesting bacteria that passes from one generation of roaches to the next. In return for hosting these bacteria, roaches obtain vital nutrients, such as vitamin B and amino acids, from their action on polysaccharides. Since bacteria need time to digest cellulose, B. dubia developed an unusually long digestive tract.

Gut length is important, but how Dubia roaches use their long digestive tract also contributes to their feeder superiority. They have a special ability to retain food in their stomachs for up to three days before it passes through. In theory, you can serve three days of gutload to your animals, and sometimes more, in just one Dubia roach meal! This gives Dubia roaches a significant advantage over other feeder insects when it comes to gut loading.

But wait…there’s more. When animals eat gut-loaded Dubia roaches, the gutload is at various stages of digestion. One day…two days…and three. Those specialized bacteria and the roach’s own digestive processes change the food’s chemical composition in ways that are beneficial to the roach, but also to the animals that eat them. Other feeder insects can’t do that. Other roaches can do it to some degree, and so can termites, but we can think of a few good reasons not to introduce termites into your home. Dubia roaches score again.

Related reading: All about gut loading Dubia roaches »

5. Ca:P ratio

Dubia roaches have a relatively high calcium-to-phosphorus ratio of approximately 1:1.5. The ideal range is between 1:1 and 2:1 Ca:P (calcium to phosphorus). Animals with dietary intake outside this range risk Metabolic Bone Disease and a few other serious medical conditions.

Unfortunately, almost all feeder insects fall short with respect to Ca:P ratio. This is why dusting with calcium powder like Osteo-Form (external link) or Rep-cal (external link) is common practice. Dubia roaches don’t have a particularly low Ca:P ratio. In fact, relative to other feeder insects, it’s pretty high, but dusting or a gutload with calcium is still advised.

While this is another relative advantage for Dubia roaches, it probably isn’t very useful in practical terms because, as you will see shortly, the calcium level is low and dusting with calcium powder is advisable.

6. Calcium

This is closely related to the calcium-to-phosphorus ratio, but distinct enough to be a benefit in its own right. It could be argued that having a high Ca:P ratio but being extremely low in calcium in absolute terms is worse than having a low ratio but being high in calcium. Metabolic bone disease is way too common in captive animals, and it continues to occur despite all the calcium dusts and gut loads on the market. For the health of insectivores in general, it would be best if they acquired adequate dietary calcium from a high-calcium feeder with no extra effort required from pet owners.

At 560 mg/kg calcium, Dubia roaches are higher than almost all other feeder insects. Getting enough calcium helps animals avoid metabolic bone disease. However, because captive reptiles and other insectivores require even more calcium than usual, we recommend dusting with calcium powder even when feeding Dubia roaches. No feeder insect supplies all the calcium captive insectivores require, but relatively speaking, Dubia roaches come close to meeting this need.

7. Vitamins & minerals

When we set out to compare the Dubia roach to other feeder insects, we gathered all the available vitamin and mineral data for the most commonly available feeders. We discovered that vitamins and minerals, although varying from study to study—sometimes significantly—are generally more plentiful in Dubia roaches and other roach species generally.

We also found it interesting that one study (external link) considered many common feeder insects nutritionally deficient (# of nutrients): waxworms(9), superworms(8), giant mealworm larvae(7), adult mealworms(6), mealworm larvae(5), adult house crickets(4), house cricket nymphs(4), silkworms(4), and earthworms(4). You will notice that Dubia roaches are not on this list.

8. Fat

At about 8%, Dubia roaches fall within the lower third of the fat content range, with around half of the other feeder insects having more and the other half less. This is one area that varied widely in the literature. Some researchers report high fat, while others report it as low. What’s interesting is that roaches have what’s called a “fat body” that stores energy (including proteins) for future use. It’s part of their adaptive response to scarcity. In times of plenty, they store up energy for reproduction or for times when food may become scarce. Fast-growing nymphs have a much smaller fat body and therefore less overall fat because they haven’t had time to store it up.

Captive insectivore fat requirements are not well-studied. It seems the scientific consensus is about what you’d guess after applying some common sense. Reptiles, amphibians, and arachnids need dietary fat. This is especially true for insectivorous ones. They don’t need huge amounts—just enough to provide the essential lipids they can’t make themselves. High-fat insects, such as waxworms, are generally considered healthy, but they should probably be more of a treat than a staple. This is due to their high fat content. Again, this goes back to opportunity cost. If your animals are filling up on fat beyond what they need, like water or chitin, they’re missing the chance to eat protein and carbohydrates.

Unfortunately, no one is quite sure what they need regarding fat. In this case, we default back to that which is found in their natural prey, which, in the wild, of course, varies.

9. Feeding interest

As cockroaches go, Dubia roaches are not particularly fast, but they aren’t slow either. They’re just about the right speed to grab the attention of insectivorous animals like bearded dragons, chameleons, and arachnids without being too fast or overwhelming. They will wander in a cage if you allow them to hunt your animals, or stay active in a feeding bowl if you don’t. With a little strategic placement, they will climb branches for arboreal animals, scale screen walls in search of warmth, and scamper around on the ground in search of shelter.

If an animal finds them too aggressive, Dubia roaches can be slowed down by putting them in the refrigerator for a few minutes. For animals that like them fast, the roaches can be taken directly from a high-temperature enclosure and placed in the animal’s cage. Adult male Dubia are noticeably faster than females and juveniles. When necessary, the refrigerator trick works great on them. It only takes a minute or so. Just enough cooling to slow them down.

In our experience, Dubia roaches are very good at triggering a feeding response. When one of our animals isn’t interested, it usually means it’s not hungry. It’s worth noting that there may be an adjustment period for animals used to eating other insects. In these cases, old feeder habits can be broken by not feeding the animal for a day or two. Not too long…just long enough for hunger to overcome any reluctance to change old habits. It typically takes one or two Dubia roach meals for most animals to accept them as a suitable food source. Once they do, you may find that the animal prefers them. We certainly did, almost universally.

10. All-around nutrition

While closely related to the benefits of specific nutrients, all-around nutrition deserves a category of its own. One of the biggest challenges in insectivore nutrition is finding a complete and balanced food source. When that doesn’t exist, we compensate by dusting, gut loading, and including as much dietary variety as possible. The problem is that this requires knowledge, care, and effort. And sometimes it’s impossible. In an ideal world, a single insect would meet all the nutritional needs of our animals.

While not perfect, Dubia roaches are the closest to a nutritionally complete feeder insect that we’ve found. Since supplementation seems largely inevitable, the goal is to find as complete a “base” food source as we can and then supplement with vitamins, minerals, and occasionally other insects from there. Dubia roaches seem made for this purpose due to the nutritional profile already mentioned. This, in itself, is a significant advantage—perhaps even the biggest of all.

Dubia roach husbandry benefits

In addition to their numerous nutritional benefits for animals, Dubia roaches also offer several advantages for animal owners. First, though, let us say that tropical roaches such as Dubia and Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and others, are not scary creatures. They are not the roaches you see scurrying a hundred miles per hour across the kitchen floor, eating anything and everything in their path. B. dubia are not pests. They are clean, social roaches that pose very low risk to people and property.

11. They’re clean

Dubia roaches require temperatures similar to those found in the tropics to survive, but they can tolerate low humidity. This means their enclosures can stay mostly dry. Assuming a plant-based diet and adequate enclosure maintenance, their frass (poop) won’t smell and will be less likely to serve as a breeding ground for unwanted pests like mites or flies. While these troubles can occur occasionally , properly managed Dubia roach colonies tend to remain remarkably clean and problem-free.

Despite their reputation as disease vectors, cockroaches are meticulous groomers and may spend more than half of their time grooming. The diseases certain species have been known to carry originate not with the roach itself but its environment. In fact, other feeder insects in the herp trade—not Dubia roaches—have been singled out as potential disease carriers. Crickets, mealworms, superworms, black soldier flies, and houseflies are regularly noted for their potential as disease sources. The cause is usually assumed to be moist and warm living conditions, combined with the insect’s excretions and uneaten food items. We were unable to find any research suggesting the same for Dubia roaches.

12. They don’t smell

It follows from their cleanliness that neither the Dubia roaches nor their enclosure smells bad. This has been our experience, as well as the experience of others. To the best of our knowledge, this is unique among feeder insects. As most reptile owners know, crickets can smell awful. Mealworms get funky. Mealworm beetles give off a stink when disturbed. All the feeders we’ve tried have smelled in one way or another – distinguished only by the degree of nastiness.

Dubia roach enclosures often have a smell similar to the food they eat. Whether that’s because the aroma of the food simply fills the enclosure or the roaches smell like the food they eat is unclear. What matters is that when they’re eating mostly oranges, grains, and other all-natural plant ingredients, their smell is barely noticeable. When we do notice it, it’s not noxious or offensive. Any existing odor becomes stronger and takes on a different smell when they eat more animal-based foods, but even then, we wouldn’t describe it as unpleasant. It’s just different.

It’s worth noting that all Dubia roaches, regardless of diet, will emit a slightly musky odor when agitated. That smell is mild and doesn’t linger.

13. They don’t make noise

For those who have fed their animals crickets: Have you ever had to deal with chirp, chirp, chirp in the middle of the night? Dubia roaches don’t chirp, hiss, cluck, or make any other sound. The most you’ll hear from them is the soft pitter-patter of tiny feet as they search for their next meal, or maybe a date for the evening. We suspect most of the scurrying heard within a colony relates to mating behavior.

As a rule, Dubia roaches are quiet creatures. They tend to keep to themselves, and most people store them in dark, out-of-the-way places, such as a closet or drawer, until it’s time to feed them.

14. They’re prolific breeders

If you buy Dubia roaches for a steady supply of feeders, you’re in luck. Adult female Dubia may produce around 35 nymphs every other month once their requisite environmental needs are satisfied. Fertility is strongly connected to habitat and health, so you’ll need to adjust these things as you move forward.

15. They can’t climb glass or slick plastic

Assuming the walls are smooth enough, lids on Dubia roach enclosures are an option rather than a necessity. Lids help maintain humidity and temperature, and they can prevent curious pets and others from creating unwanted problems. But they aren’t required. All things equal, there’s no need to lock Dubia roaches in. They can’t climb non-textured surfaces like other tropical roach species.

16. They don’t fly

Male Dubia roaches have wings, but they aren’t used for flying. Males often climb to a high spot in their enclosure, jump, and flutter back to the ground. But this is the most they can muster. Females don’t have wings, and neither do nymphs. That pretty much sums it up.

17. They don’t attack or bite

This is probably self-explanatory. Dubia roaches won’t attack, bite, or otherwise harass you or your animals. Darkling beetles may nibble on resting reptiles or arachnids. They may even try eating their fellow food bowl mates. Mealworms can devour crickets alive, and crickets bite with powerful jaws.

On the other hand, Dubia roaches are harmless. The worst we’ve seen is an occasional tendency to nibble at skin, but it’s always after we’ve handled food. They aren’t attacking – they’re looking for food. As soon as the roach realizes the hand they’re nibbling isn’t food, they usually scamper away. Maybe if they’re starving, they might be a tad more aggressive, but again, it’s all about food. Our experience is that they have zero interest in searching for food in someone’s skin when they’re fully fed.

From our perspective, people tend to lump all cockroaches together. For that reason, B. dubia and other tropical roaches get a bad rap. Before getting into feeding them to our animals, we had no idea about the differences between the American cockroach and the Argentine cockroach, for example, so we understand the misperceptions. And yes, no one—including us—wants to see cockroaches in their home or, god forbid, a restaurant, but by and large, tropical roaches are harmless. They don’t pick up nasty bacteria in sewers and track them into our kitchens. There is very little comparison between a German cockroach living in the sewer during a hot, muggy summer and an Argentinian cockroach that spends half its day preening and wouldn’t survive ten days outside its carefully controlled enclosure.

18. They eat almost anything

For their benefit and the benefit of the animals they nourish, it’s best to feed Dubia roaches fresh, whole foods. But the fact is that roaches, including B. dubia can survive on almost anything (external link). In fact, many species can go a very long time without eating at all. Female Eublaberus posticus can live a year on water alone. The Madagascar Hissing cockroach can live a month without food or water. The average survival time without food of roaches in the baberdae family (to which B. dubia belongs) is 27 days.

However, this is not, of course, the way to optimum health. You achieve this by supplying Dubia with grains, seeds, nuts, at least one source of high-quality protein, and a variety of fruits and vegetables. They would love the core when you finish your apple. If you eat a carrot, bite off a hunk, and drop it in their enclosure. Making a salad? Put aside a piece of lettuce for your roaches.

As feeders, Dubia are very simple and easy-to-maintain roaches. You can add a quality gutload before feeding them off if you like, or you can stick with whole foods. Whatever you like and your animals require. They respond differently to various foods in terms of growth and breeding, but as feeders, they are very simple to keep.

The protein issue is a contentious one among Dubia breeders. In the wild, Blaptica dubia ingest protein along with the plant matter they eat. That may be bacteria, fungi, and even the larvae of other insects. Like any roach, B. dubia can also be cannibalistic. This is particularly true when the amount or quality of protein in their diet is subpar. And, they probably wouldn’t pass on a chance to eat any insect carcass they happen across. However, that said, they are not well-adapted to consuming large quantities of protein continuously. They are thrifty invertebrates that evolved in nutrient-scarce environments, and the adaptations that allowed them to survive and thrive in those conditions are the same ones that kill them if they eat too much protein. It’s a complicated issue that we address in more detail in our article about B. dubia and dietary protein, which is an important read if you’re a prospective breeder.

19. They are long-lived

Dubia roaches live between one and two years on average. The lives of other feeders are usually measured in weeks or maybe months rather than years. Feeding off fewer Dubias than planned isn’t a problem. They take months to mature, grow relatively slowly, and their growth slows substantially in cooler temperatures. At around 70°F, they may stay in their current instar for a year!

20. They won’t infest your home

Unless you live in a tropical climate, tropical roaches are very unlikely to colonize your home. Dubia roaches need conditions similar to those found in the equatorial regions of Central and South America to survive and breed. That means consistent high temperatures and humidity. Anything short of that won’t cut it. Not a basement, under a refrigerator, or behind a kitchen cabinet – unless of course your basement, refrigerator, or kitchen is located in the tropics.

We let feeder insects roam free in our reptile enclosures, and if the Dubia aren’t eaten within a few days, we have to remove them because they become listless. In this state, they are certainly incapable of breeding. For these reasons and others—including the fact that we’ve never heard of Dubia roaches setting up a colony in someone’s home—we think the risk of colonization outside a controlled, enclosed environment is extremely low.

As an aside, Dubia roaches are banned from importation (external link) into the state of Florida and Hawaii. This seems to stem more from their annoyance at becoming a breeding ground for once-captive, non-native reptiles and other animals than out of concern for damage to habitat or property. Blaptica Dubia is not considered a pest in its countries of origin. They prefer the rainforest and typically do not leave near people. They certainly don’t scavenge off humans like other roach species do. As far as we know, there are no instances of B. dubia colonization in the wild anywhere in the U.S.

Wrapping it up

We hope we’ve at least made the case that you should try Dubia roaches, if not switch to them outright as a primary feeder. We opted for early adoption, and we’ve been very pleased with our results. Our biases should be obvious, and we freely admit them. However, it’s also true that we wouldn’t have switched to Dubias—let alone decided to breed them and work to develop their potential as feeders—if we didn’t think they had a lot to offer.

Their nutritional superiority hooked us early. From their high protein and low chitin to the security of knowing we’re feeding our animals insects with at least three times the capacity to deliver our gutload…and deliver it in various forms as it’s digested over time. We were ultimately sold on their ease, convenience, and the awesome lack of annoyances we had become so accustomed to with other insects. Our cricket escapees and their incessant chirping are down 90%. One might not fully appreciate the peace and quiet of no indoor crickets chirping late at night unless you’ve walked in those shoes.

There are so many advantages to Dubia roaches that this itself is an advantage. We see them increasing in popularity over time, and we anticipate that this trend will continue. Herp owners will be well-served when that happens.

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