Calcium gutloads for dubia

[boonbear]

I have a good friend I trade roaches with that has had some trouble lately with their dubia. They have had huge die-offs. I asked what they were feeding and they said they use Repashy gutload. I checked the ingredients and it is very high in calcium. Could that alone cause large die-offs? I've never used a gutload before, just shake-and-baked.

[Pharma]

Hi

I once tried a really non-physiologically high calcium supplementation to gut load some roaches before feeding them to lizards and they got seizures and such. I assume that they would have died from calcium intoxication if not 'death by predators' would have been quicker .
Roaches aren't made to deal with high amounts of calcium (especially as water soluble salts) whilst reptiles i) need more calcium for bone and egg formation and ii) can store and/or excrete excessive calcium quite fast.

Either immediately feed the calcium loaded roaches or dust them in calcium before feeding.

Grüessli
Andreas

[porgy65]

I had some leftover high calcium food and water crystals for crickets and gave it to my new colony ,in one day two females died and i replaced the food with my new recipe and just water crystals and carrots