Feeder Insects in South Florida

This page is for keepers in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Hialeah, Homestead, Boca Raton, Naples and the surrounding metro.

The Rule That Applies Everywhere in Florida

Before anything regional: dubia roaches are restricted in Florida and discoid roaches are not. Live arthropods fall under the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, not the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the permit involved is not issued to keepers or feeder sellers.

This is the single most consequential fact for a Florida keeper, and it is why a Florida reptile shop stocks discoids where an out-of-state one stocks dubia. The agency, the statute and the reasoning are set out in why discoid roaches are legal in Florida.

South Florida is the hottest and most humid part of the state, and it effectively does not get a winter. Both facts change how feeder insects behave.

Humidity Cuts Both Ways

High ambient humidity is a help for some species and a problem for others.

• Helps: hornworm cups dry out more slowly, and bioactive enclosures hold moisture with less work — frass and cleanup-crew systems stay active.
• Hurts: mould. A humid room is where a feeder cup goes bad fastest, and where a roach colony develops problems. Ventilation matters more here than anywhere else in the state.

Why the Restriction Bites Hardest Here

South Florida is the reason Florida regulates arthropods as strictly as it does. Burmese pythons, Cuban tree frogs and cane toads all established here, and the climate that let them do it is the same climate an escaped feeder colony would enjoy. A keeper in Miami is living in the exact scenario the rule was written for.

The practical upshot is the same as everywhere in the state: build the diet around discoid roaches and black soldier fly larvae, and do not go looking for a dubia workaround.

Ordering Live Feeders

All Angles Creatures ships live feeders across Florida from Altamonte Springs. What to buy is covered in the individual guides — discoid roaches, how to feed them, and the storage guide that keeps them alive once they arrive.