Dubia Roach Gut Loading Guide

Feeding Dubia roaches to reptiles, amphibians, arachnids, and other insectivores is a wise choice. One reason is that they’re chock-full of nutrition — often meeting or exceeding other insects on nutrition-related metrics. However, despite this superiority, we still recommend gut-loading Dubia roaches.

Why? Many health problems in insectivores are more closely related to captivity than to a deficiency in feeder insects. Captive animals tend to receive less natural sunlight, engage in less physical activity, and receive less dietary diversity than their wild counterparts. This deficiency can cause a cascade of stress, decline, and illness.

Fortunately, you can address and even correct these issues with gut loading. This guide discusses what, why, and how to gut load Dubia roaches.

Table of Contents

• What is gut loading?
• Why gut load Dubia roaches?
• How to gut load Dubia roaches
• What not to use as gut load
• Conclusion

Gut-loading feeder insects is a common practice for those who keep insectivores. Whether for additional calcium, vitamin C, or other critical nutrients, we know it’s something we must do for the health of our animals.

Gut-loading Dubia roaches require little effort. And for such little effort, it reaps huge rewards. It’s also easy. All you need is some Dubia Roach Gut Load, Dubia roaches, of course, a little information, and a desire to make it happen.

What is gut loading?

Gut loading is the practice of providing nutrients to insects not for their benefit, but for the benefit of the animals that eat them.

The process of gut loading is simple. First, feeder insects are fed a food or substance containing nutrients thought to be beneficial for the insectivore. For example, this may include healthy foods rich in vitamin C. Or, it may be greens rich in calcium. It can also be a gut-load product containing certain nutrients designed for this purpose. Whatever the case, gut loading is feeding insects the food you want your animals to eat.

After consuming a gutload of food or substance, the insects are fed to an animal, which in turn obtains the nutrients from the gutload. In the end, the insect was just the middleman.

Why do it this way? Most insectivores are carnivorous and will only eat insects. They need some of the nutrients in plants — even more so in captivity — but they don’t eat plants directly. Only indirectly, through gut loading.

General gut loading concepts

Gut loading is an indirect method of providing primary nutrition to an insectivore. Instead of eating a particular plant, the insectivore eats an insect that ate the plant. The nutritional value of a gut-loaded insect is the insect plus whatever is inside its stomach and intestines.

The goal of gut loading is to provide the insects with healthy fare to benefit the animals that consume them. This may be food that contains specific vitamins, minerals, and macro- or micronutrients. It may also be vitamin or mineral supplements. Or, it may be any combination of these.

Gut loading is for the insectivore, not the insect

It’s important to note that gut loading is done exclusively for the benefit of the insectivore without regard for the health of the insect. The nutrients given to the insect in a gut load are meant to nourish the insectivore, not the insect. The purpose of gut loading is to get (often plant-based) food and its nutrients into an (often carnivorous) animal to satisfy that animal’s nutritional needs. Therefore, a gut load is anything good for the insectivore, even if it is bad for the insect. Again, the insect is just the delivery vehicle.

Because of this, gut loading is often a short-run proposition for the insect. In cases where a gut load does not meet its nutritional needs, the insect will compensate for the deficit by tapping into its nutritional reserves. Over time, this will reduce its nutritional value. Therefore, you want to gut load insects shortly before feeding them off. Generally, you do not want to sustain or raise insects on a gut load. They aren’t meant for that.

The exception to this rule is when the gut load material is healthy for the insect. Ultimately, it all depends on your gut load. If it’s oranges or other whole foods high in vitamin C and other nutrients, insects will be OK for a while. If it’s a heavy calcium powder, that obviously won’t sustain the insects for long.

Is gut loading the same as feeding the roaches good food?

We get this question a lot. These two things are often very similar. The distinction between gut loading and regular feeding is intent and timing.

Regarding intent: “Gut loading” means giving Dubia roaches food intended not for them but for the animals that eat them. The distinction between gut loading and regular feeding is at its greatest when you feed the roaches something bad for them but good for the insectivore. Or something bad for them in the quantity you give it, but good for the insectivore.

One example is calcium. Another is vitamin A. Your animal is much larger than the insects it eats, and an appropriate dose of calcium or vitamin A for them is too much for an insect. But again, that doesn’t matter, because gut loading is for the animal, not the insect.

Regarding timing: Traditionally, gut loading refers to providing an insect with a rich diet shortly before feeding it to an insectivorous animal. The implication here is that the food in the insect’s belly (the gut load) ends up in the belly of the insectivore largely undigested. In a sense, the gut load is intended for the insectivore, but it’s fed to the insect. This is done because most carnivorous animals don’t eat plants, and plants are the things with the good stuff we want to gut load.

This is how it works in the wild. Insects eat plants, and then insectivores eat the insects that have eaten the plants. Prey insects often have undigested plant matter in their guts, and this is how nutrition passes from insect to insectivore. This is gut-loading, and we aim to replicate this in captivity.

So the answer is that gut loading and feeding insects healthy foods are similar things that often overlap. When we refer to gut-loading Dubia roaches, we are talking about feeding them a diet specifically designed for the benefit of the animals that consume them, without regard for the health of the insects themselves.

How long to gut load?

Gut loading is usually done hours or days before feeding off the insects. However, most feeder insects digest their food within 24 hours, so the value of their gut load is measured by what they consumed the previous day. But as you will see, Dubia roaches are different. They have a unique digestive system that extends their gut-loading time to as many as three days. This feature has added benefits for the animals that eat them.

Making up nutritional gaps

Concerning the balance of intrinsic (the insect) versus extrinsic (what it ate) nutritional value for the insectivore, gut loading is supplemental. It’s a way to provide additional nutrients to an animal or to supplement nutrients that may be absent from its diet. In either case, the insect is still the primary nutritional source. The food in its stomach is secondary. However, both are important. Perhaps not equally so, but there’s no need to choose one or the other. Dubia roaches allow you to select both to a greater degree than other feeder insects.

Why gut load Dubia roaches?

Proper nutrition is crucial for maintaining the health of captive reptiles. The same is true for amphibians, arachnids, and other insectivores. Providing feeder insects with nutrients suitable for the animals that will consume them helps maintain good health and can aid in the recovery of sick or stressed animals. The key to good feeder nutrition is (a) choosing a nutritious feeder and then (b) loading its gut with healthy foods.

Being the most nutritious feeder insect doesn’t mean having all the nourishment your animals will ever need. It would be nice if this were true, but it’s not. Animal nutrition is complicated, and so is the interplay between nutrition, diet, and health. As it stands, there is no single insect that meets all the dietary needs of every insectivore. Dubia roaches come closest to this ideal, but there is still room for improvement via gut loading.

Calcium is a good example. Like all insects, the Dubia roach doesn’t have a skeleton, and its exoskeleton doesn’t contain calcium. Dubia roaches provide animals with dietary calcium, but it comes from their body, not their exoskeleton. And importantly, the calcium from Dubia roaches is insufficient to support the growth and maintenance of an insectivore’s skeleton (assuming it has one).

So how do insectivores get enough calcium in the wild? Part of the answer is that nature gut loads. Calcium comes from the ground. It is abundant in soil, compost, and vegetation — all things insects love to eat. Many or most insects eaten in the wild have themselves eaten in the previous 24 hours, and this is how insectivores get their calcium. From the guts of the insects they eat. It’s also how they get other minerals and vitamins. In a sense, insects come gut-loaded in nature.

Lack of dietary diversity

In addition to eating a bug and whatever that bug had for lunch, wild animals tend to eat a diverse diet. The assortment of prey they encounter in nature is far greater than what is practical in captivity. This diversity is another way animals in the wild meet their nutritional needs. Dietary diversity helps keep them healthy. Dietary monotony in captivity, on the other hand, is a reason to gut load.

And many animal owners do. As a group, we put significant effort into replicating our animal’s native habitat. But the natural diet of exotic animals is often difficult to imitate. Providing an insect buffet of ten or twenty different species is often impractical. While replicating a captive insectivore’s natural diet may not be feasible for most people, feeding them gut-loaded Dubia roaches is. Dietary diversity can be replicated by (a) choosing Dubia roaches as a primary feeder, (b) supplementing with occasional treats for variety, and (c) gut loading.

Gut loading: what experts suggest

In case you need more convincing, Merck veterinary manuals considers nutritional supplementation a “must” for amphibians (external link), and “required” for reptiles (external link). They point to two forms of supplementation: gut loading and dusting. We agree that dusting is beneficial, but dusting and gut loading are different.

Superior Dubia roach gut-loadability

Another reason to gut-load Dubia roaches is their inherent ability to be gut-loaded. First, they can eat a tremendous amount of food. The difference between a hungry Dubia roach that hasn’t eaten in a while and one that’s full can be as much as three times its body weight. This ability to pack away tremendous amounts of food relative to its body size presents an opportunity to load them up with lots of fresh, whole foods, in turn increasing their nutritional value.

In addition to their massive food storage capacity, Dubia roaches are also unique in their ability to retain food in their belly for up to three days. The volume of matter in their guts may be greater than that of other gut-loaded insects on a per-weight basis. Furthermore, what’s in there will be in various states of digestion.

The first point means more gut load and more nutrition. The second point means a greater variety in nutrition. We think this may be significant. The nutritional profile of plant matter differs according to its stage of digestion. Some nutrients become available in the early stages of digestion, while others become available later. Some nutrients aren’t available at all until later in the process. Although there is limited research on this topic, the idea that insectivores require insects to process some of their food to obtain certain nutrients is an idea that scientists are currently researching. And it makes intuitive sense.

Dubia roaches: unique digestion abilities

This leads to another reason to gut load Dubia roaches: They can digest plant matter that other feeder insects can’t. Roaches digest plant fibers with the help of specialized bacteria in their guts. This digestive ability means roaches have access to nutrients that carnivorous animals on their own don’t (external link). The only way insectivores can get these nutrients is by eating the roach.

It’s reasonable to think insectivores require at least some nutrients unlocked by roaches during digestion for good health. Which of these nutrients and how many are currently unknown, but the idea goes back to evolution and dietary diversity. The interdependency between predator and prey makes sense. It’s common in nature, and we’re still learning how these interdependencies work.

The bottom line is that captive insectivores living outside their natural habitat, consuming insects other than their natural prey, require nutritional supplementation to achieve and maintain optimum health. Dubia roaches are super nutritious, but we still advise supplementation. We recommend gut-loading Dubia roaches with nutrient-dense plant foods or a formal gut load at least occasionally, but preferably often.

How to gut load dubia roaches

Gut-loading Dubia roaches is easy. At its most basic, you could simply add some fruits or vegetables and consider it done. This is one way to go, and your animals would probably be better off if you had done it.

However, this approach leaves something on the table. You could do more, and your animals would probably be healthier if you did. You can avoid this missed opportunity by learning from our experience below.

The following are some basic steps to gut loading. They’re based on our experience and are somewhat self-explanatory. You will find general guidelines, specific reasons, and some key points that we think are worth knowing.

Decide what you want to accomplish

First, decide what you want to accomplish and why.

To begin, we divide gut loading into two categories: “Specific” and “general.” These overlap somewhat, but they’re generally separated by how an insect is gut loaded, with what (to some degree), and for what purpose.

Strategy 1: general gut loading

General gut loading involves feeding the roaches foods considered “generally healthy” for the target animal. These may include a variety of fruits or vegetables that contain a range of essential micro and macronutrients. Examples include carotenoids, carbohydrates, calcium, and vitamin C. These are all nutrients animals need in some quantity, depending on the species.

The goal of general gut loading is to provide a reliable, long-term supply of basic nutrition through healthy feeder insects (the roach) supplemented with whole plant foods (the gut load). Examples include a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and grains.

Dubia roaches enjoy a variety of fruits, including apples, oranges, bananas, mangos, pears, and more. They also like vegetables — particularly carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, and various greens. They like grains, often cooked but sometimes raw. These foods are all excellent general gut loads because they contain nutrients animals need. Some of them are also available in most supermarkets throughout the year.

The key to general gut loading is finding something that works for you and your animals, then providing it consistently. You might settle on one or two staples that you mix up from time to time based on availability. Alternatively, you can opt for seasonal produce. How you proceed is entirely up to you. The keywords here are “healthy” and “reliable.”

Consider organic produce

At this point, we want to mention that organic foods — especially organic fruits and vegetables — are the safest for gut loading. Pesticide exposure from conventional produce may not kill an animal, but it probably causes at least some metabolic stress. The amount of stress and its impact on the animal may depend on the species, its health, and other factors specific to your unique situation.

For us as reptile owners, the issue of diet-induced stress takes a swing at the purpose of gut loading, which is nutritional support. We don’t want to defeat that purpose. It’s generally safe to feed conventional produce that’s washed and peeled, but we have had issues with pesticides in the past.

Whether or not you opt for organic is your choice, and even those who make this choice sometimes have issues with availability. But we wanted to let you know it’s an option and why it might matter. If you use conventional produce, our best advice is to wash it thoroughly at a minimum. If it’s something you can peel, we recommend peeling it.

Related reading: Organic dubia roaches and pesticides in produce »

Strategy 2: specific gut loading

The alternative to general gut loading is specific gut loading. The two are very similar. For example, general and specific gut loading often include the same foods. However, they differ in important ways. The most obvious ways are approach and intent.

Specific gut loading involves feeding the roaches foods that contain certain target nutrients for a specific reason. One example could be carotenoids (for vitamin A) to address an existing eye issue. Or it could be that a particular species is prone to developing eye problems, so a gut load can target carotenoids in an effort to prevent eye problems from developing.

Specific gut loading can target any nutrient. It could be vitamin A, vitamin C, or any other vitamin. It can be foods with high iron or calcium, or foods with low iron or calcium. Specific gut loading is for animals with a nutritional deficiency, animals prone to develop issues from a particular nutritional deficiency, or animals that may benefit from an additional boost (or reduction) of one nutrient or another.

Food selection

After deciding what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, the next step is determining which foods to use. Dubia roaches are not overly picky eaters, but they do have preferences.

To maximize your efforts, look for foods that meet your pet’s nutritional goal that the roaches also like. A food they only mildly enjoy won’t be a failure, but you may be leaving something on the table. If you find a food with the nutrition you want for your animal that the roaches love so much they fill their bellies to capacity, that would be ideal.

Foods that are good for specific gut loading that Dubia roaches have a taste for include apples, bananas, beets, bread, broccoli, carrots, oranges, potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes, various cooked grains like oats, wheat, and rice, and zucchini. This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good starting point.

Food issues: Gut load palatability

With this approach, you may encounter a situation where the roaches dislike the food you’re feeding them. Don’t worry if this happens. There’s a trick to getting Dubia roaches to eat a gut load they don’t like.

The trick is to mix it with some fruit, sugar, or bread. Dubia roaches love sugar. They also like yeast. While neither sugar nor yeast contributes much to the quality of a gut load, they serve a purpose in this case. Just be sure to use them sparingly. It doesn’t take much sugar to get Dubia roaches interested.

You can also try combining sugar and yeast. Let the mix sit in a warm, dark place for about an hour, and the yeast will consume some sugar. Table sugar works, but whole fruit is probably better because it contains vitamins, minerals, and fiber. In our experience, you can add fruit to a gut load in any amount without negative consequences. However, we suggest adding citrus fruits sparingly, as some animals appear to have issues with them.

Whether or not citrus is part of your gut load depends on the animals that will ultimately consume it. We’ve seen and heard that some reptiles, for example, are not impacted by citrus fruit while others are. That might be something to consider researching with your particular situation in mind.

Gut load cautions

In gut loading, you can consider almost any food. However, there are some you should use with caution, sparingly, or not at all. These recommendations come from our observations. While we’re confident in what we’ve seen, your mileage may vary. Our experience is not total, and there are likely things we have not yet tried that may yield either positive or negative results. We think it’s a good idea to approach the unknown with caution.

Beans: bad for insectivores

Don’t gut load with beans. Beans may have a negative impact on roaches and the animals that eat them. While beans are protein-rich, nutritious, and healthy for humans, they can be detrimental for insects and insectivores. We don’t have more information on this. It’s just something we’ve noticed.

Maybe it’s the lectins, which are part of a plant’s natural protection against being eaten. Humans have evolved ways of dealing with lectins, but perhaps some insects and insectivorous animals have not. Whatever the case, we don’t gut load with beans.

Be careful with citrus

Don’t gut-load with too much citrus fruit. How much is too much depends on the situation. Dubia roaches are not sensitive to citrus, but some insectivores are. Be aware of this if you gut load with oranges, grapefruit, or other citrus fruits. Tomato products, too.

One solution may be to wait at least a day before feeding off roaches loaded with citrus. If an animal loses its appetite after eating citrus-stuffed roaches or starts losing interest in Dubia roaches altogether, you may want to reduce or eliminate the citrus.

Grains may be a problem sometimes

We’ve encountered occasional problems with gut-loading grains. Sometimes they work great, but sometimes they don’t. The two factors with the most influence on whether a grain gut load succeeds seem to be the amount of processing and the insectivore consuming them.

Processed grains appear to be the safest choice, which makes sense. The more processing grains undergo, the more any substances that might potentially irritate an insectivore are diminished or eliminated. The problem is that any processing that eliminates potentially harmful things also tends to reduce the number of healthful things.

If you want to try grains, start with something common and bland, like oats or pasta. Cook everything thoroughly. Maybe use it as a base and add other things to it.

Avoid gut loading with meat

Don’t gut-load with meat. Dubia roaches will eat meat, but meat really isn’t their thing. They prefer plants. Meat may not directly or significantly affect your animals negatively, but it sort of defeats the purpose of gut loading. Gut loading should provide nutrients that your animals would not get otherwise from Dubia roaches. They’re already getting lots of protein from the roaches themselves. What may be missing — and what they need your help getting — are nutrients found in plants. These include Vitamin C, plant phenols, and fiber, among others.

We also recommend avoiding dog and cat food, as well as similarly processed animal feed. While it is probably not the worst thing in the world, we maintain the same level of caution for pet food as for meat. Yes, pet foods have “high protein,” but so do Dubia roaches. You already have that covered. Pet foods often contain grains such as rice, wheat, and corn. As mentioned previously, these aren’t typical gut-load foods. If used, they’re best used sparingly, and as a base to which you add other things. As mentioned above, grains can sometimes cause problems.

Generally, a pet food gut load will be high in protein and fat and low in the nutrients you should be targeting. The more whole (unprocessed), natural (unprocessed), and plant food (not meat), the better. Pet foods can be used as a gut load if you insist, but we think they leave something on the table.

Keep it fresh

Don’t gut-load anything rotten. This probably goes without saying. Dubia roaches can and will eat almost anything, but this doesn’t mean they should. And your animal probably can’t eat anything and everything, so be mindful of the quality of the gut load. Unless, of course, you’re feeding a monitor lizard, in which case it doesn’t matter and you can do whatever you want.

Save supplements for dusting

Don’t gut load with pure calcium or vitamin powders. These are meant to be dusted on insects before feeding them off. There’s no guarantee Dubia roaches will eat pure calcium. In fact, it’s reasonable to believe that they may avoid it altogether. Cockroaches have the ability to eat preferentially, so it’s conceivable that they might “eat around” something like pure calcium or synthetic vitamins.

Also, consider that just as too little of one nutrient can be bad for an animal, so can too much. Examples of nutrients that may be unhealthy in large doses include calcium, iron, and vitamin A.

If you have an insect dusting powder, we recommend using it as intended. While it’s possible that adding a small amount to your Dubia feeder’s food will work as a gut load, there’s also a chance it may not be effective.

In conclusion…

Gut loading should be fun. It involves some measure of creativity, you get to see the result of your efforts, and it’s an easy way to improve the health of your animals. In a sense, it’s a way to positively interact with them. It has the potential to improve their lives, which is worthwhile in and of itself. And of course, anything that improves their lives increases your enjoyment of them.

While we suggest following these basic guidelines in gut-loading your Dubia roaches, this area is ripe for experimentation. We encourage you to try new things. However, a word of caution: It’s best to stay within the boundaries described above. Of course, each animal and situation is different, and what works in one case may not be right in another. Start with the basics, find what works for you and your animal, then branch out from there. Test new ideas as you go.

As always, we’re interested to know what people are doing with their gutloads. Please let us know if you find something that works particularly well for your animals or roaches!

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