You may be wondering if spiders eat roaches or not, and there can be two reasons for this.
- You want to feed roaches to your pet spiders and just making sure if its safe to do so.
- You want to use spiders to get rid of roaches from your house.
It’s totally safe and healthy to feed roaches to your pet spiders. Red runners are the ideal roach breed to feed spiders as they are soft and small in size.
Using Spiders to control pests inside your house is a passive slow method that cannot eliminate roaches entirely in your house. Spiders themselves can grow in large numbers to become another problem.
Its ineffective to use spiders to control Roaches
It’s useless to use spiders as a form of controlling roaches inside your home. We all know lions and tigers do eat wild animals like deers etc, but it does not disturb the ecosystem, and the population of deers still thrives.
Similarly, using spiders as a method to get rid of roaches won’t work out, as spiders don’t seek roaches actively, rather they will attack those which do come to the hiding spots of a spider.
Additionally, the growth rate of roaches is quite fast compared to the consumption by spiders, so it’s an ineffective way to control roaches.
Tired of cockroaches? Invest in only these products and follow the guide to eliminate roaches!
Use these products, and you will be roach free in less than a week.
1. Advion Cockroach Gel Bait (Review)
2. Gentrol IGR Point Source (Review)
Other Products to try:
1. Combat Roach Traps (Easy than gel baits)
2. Hot Shot Foggers (To kill in masses – 95%)
3. Pet Safe Killers (Uses Essential Oils)
4. Ortho Defence Outdoor Roach Killer (Prevent Roaches)
Feeding roaches to your pet spiders is safe and healthy
Cockroaches are rich in proteins and make a great deal of food for pet spiders, lizards, bearded dragons, scorpions, and other exotic pets.
Although it’s not recommended to feed all kinds of cockroaches to spiders, the red runner (also known as Turkistan roach) is the ideal roach you should feed your spider.
Ideal Cockroach to feed spiders
The ideal roaches should have a soft outer exoskeleton and low chitin content.
1. Red Runner – Turkestan Roach – Red Racer (Blatta lateralis)
The red runner is the most ideal roach for feeding your exotic pets including spiders. The scientific name of the red runner roach is Blatta Lateralis. I have written a full article of these which you can view here. Red Runner Roaches.
Some features of red runner cockroaches
- These roaches are soft bodied with low chitin content. Chitin is a protien which hardens the outer shell of a cockroach. This make them ideal for feeding purposes.
- These cockroaches are fast runners which trigger feeding response of spider.
- These roaches can not climb clean polished surfaces, so won’t leave your pet spider’s container.
- Red Races roaches have a unique smell which grabs attention of many species of spiders and turn on their feeding mode.
- These roaches need a very ideal temperature and enviornment to breed, so chances of an infestation is low.
- You can sell these roaches for a good source of income.
2. Dubia Cockroach (Blaptica dubia)
Dubia Roaches (Blaptica dubia) are also known as Tropical Spotted Roaches due to dark black spots on their back. They are also known as orange-spotted roaches or just Dubia.
These are small one-inch roaches and females don’t have wings. Dubia roaches are rich in protein and make a perfect feeder insect for spiders and a lot of other exotic pets.
Following are a few features of Dobia roaches.
- Dubia roaches are quite clean compaired to other feeder insects like crockets, worms or nutrigrubs.
- Dubia roaches have almost no odor if kept clean.
- These roaches can not climb smooth surfaces and can’t fly. They can’t escape easily.
- Dubia cockroaches are easy to maintain and breed at home. They grow quickly and you can make a self sustainable colony of roaches to feed all of your exotic pets including spiders.
- High in protien (Over 22%), low in chitin compared to crickets, these are relatively easy to digest. However, the chitin quantity is quite high compared to red runner roaches. You can feed baby dubia nymphs to your spiders if you are concerned about the chitin quantity.
- Its is better to feed dubia roaches via tongs to your spiders.
- The growing period of dubia roach is around 5-6 months from nymph to full grown adults.
- Low maintaince roach
- Dubia roaches have a habbit of playing dead, so a little hard to feed.
- They can also quickly burrow.
- Need a warmer temperature to gorw and breed.
3. Lobster Cockroach – Speckled cockroach (Nauphoeta cinerea)
Lobster cockroaches originated from Egypt. These are also low in chitin and are soft-bodied to be consumed by exotic pets including spiders.
Following are a few features of lobster roaches
- Soft body roaches with lower quantity of chitin and high percentage of protien.
- Very prolific breeders and can grow into a big colony from a small quantity.
- They are parthenogenetic, but the offspirng won’t survive for long.
- Lobster roaches can climb anything, so they can run away to cause infestation. Need to be extracareful while breeding them.
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Pictures of Spiders eating roaches
Following are a few pictures of spiders eating roaches reported by several users on Reddit.
What kind of spider eats cockroaches?
Generally speaking, all kinds of spiders will eat roaches. Even spiders can take on roaches larger than their body size, but your pet spider can be picky to even refuse feeder roaches like a red runner or dubia roach despite its size.
Following are the kind of spider species that will eat a cockroach.
- Tarantulas
- Psalmopoeus species
- Avicularia species
- Caribena Versicolour.
- Poecilotheria species
- Wolf spiders
- Huntsman spiders
- Jumping spiders
- Running spiders
- Brown recluse spiders
- Widow spiders
- Long-bodied cellar spider
- Brown recluse
- Daddy long leg
- Sac spider
- Hobo spider
