B Lateris

Hey I was interested in starting red racer colony. I have a Dubia colony going but I would like to get out of crickets as soon as possible and I feel the Turks are the way to go since they lay eggs constantly. I was wondering if they are easy to take care of and how do they compare to Dubia in terms of care. Also do they escape easy I keep hearing that the males fly

Red racers can be great to keep! They are probably the most prolific breeding species of feeder roaches. I used to keep a nice colony myself, I simply got tired of the males flying out when I opened the colony up. I also was no fond of trying to catch them. They are too comparable to crickets in my opinion. They have all the same draw backs to me, save for the smell and noise of crickets.

Dubias are the way to go in my opinion. They are also a prolific breeder (females spend somewhere around 92% of their life gravid). They only draw back I have recorded to my dubias, is the fact that they mature slower than the red racers. This is the main reason laterallis are known as the fastest breeding. My dubia colony (my first one) was started with just 300 nymphs and around 10 breeding pairs. This colony required about 10 months to actually get up to a size where I could comfortably feed out of it. I initiated my second colony by purchasing 1000 roaches from two separate sources (2000 in total). This immense starting point allowed me to feed immediately and I have had absolutely to down periods where I could not feed out of this colony on a regular basis. The larger size of the adults is what I like most over lateralis.

Care is simple. Take care of them just like your dubias and they will do great. The roaches will prosper in a wide range of environments. I always keep mine at 85F and 35-65% humidity.

Depending on how you keep them, I find lats to be very prolific and definitely not as smelly as crickets. I keep my temps around 90 and humidity is around 35-50% with the occasional misting. They are very easy to keep and I recommend that people should clean out their tubs at least once a month. I experienced a lot of baby deaths due to being smothered by the frass. Compared to dubia, the lats definitely produce much faster. The lats do stink more than the dubias. I find that my reptiles (cresteds and leos) love chasing after the turks. Dubias tend to "play dead" making most reptiles pass them up. IMO turks should be more expensive lol. The males don't really fly until your colony starts to grow. I've noticed that when my colony boomed into the 10's of thousands, my males started to take flight. It seems as though they are trying to get away from the colony. I've also noticed this with my dubias as well. Hopefully this helped!
-Johnny