Discoid Roaches vs. Katydids for Blue Tongue Skinks: A Keeper's Complete Feeding Guide

I've kept feeder colonies and insectivorous and omnivorous reptiles for years, and the question I get most often from blue tongue skink owners is some version of "discoid roaches or katydids?" It usually comes from a good place — someone's read that katydids are a more natural prey item and wants to do right by their animal. The honest answer is that these two insects aren't really competing for the same role. One is a staple you build a feeding routine around; the other is an occasional enrichment item that earns its place through behavioral value, not raw nutrition. This guide walks through both in full: the dietary context blue tongue skinks actually require, what each feeder honestly delivers, the big Ca:P correction most feeder guides get wrong, breeding and availability reality, cost over the life of the animal, pesticide and parasite risk, and practical feeding technique. By the end you'll have a clear picture of where each feeder fits and how to use both intelligently.

What blue tongue skinks actually eat

Before evaluating any feeder, you have to get the dietary framework right, because it changes everything about how you assess an insect for these animals.

Blue tongue skinks (Tiliqua spp.) are true omnivores. In the wild, they forage across a broad mixed diet that includes plant matter — leaves, flowers, berries, fungi — insects and other invertebrates, the occasional small vertebrate, and even carrion when it's available. They are not insectivores, and treating them like small bearded dragons that happen to eat more vegetables is one of the most common ways people get their nutrition wrong.

The proportions that most experienced keepers and reptile nutritionists arrive at for a captive adult: roughly 50% vegetables and leafy greens, 30–40% protein sources (insects, lean cooked meats, eggs), and 10–15% fruit used only occasionally because of the sugar load. Leafy greens like collard, mustard, dandelion, and turnip greens form the plant backbone, alongside vegetables like squash, green beans, and bell pepper. Juveniles tilt more heavily toward protein to fuel rapid growth — they can eat close to daily — while adults need plant matter to make up that half of the diet every week.

This framing matters before we discuss feeder insects at all. Even the best roach or katydid in the world, fed perfectly, gut-loaded immaculately, and dusted with every supplement on the market, cannot by itself constitute a healthy blue tongue skink diet. The greens that make up half the diet provide vitamins, fiber, and micronutrients that no insect covers. We're evaluating feeders as one component in a system, not as a complete meal.

The calcium and D3 requirement is non-negotiable

Whatever feeder insects you use, you will be dusting them with calcium. This is not optional and not a hedge — it's a structural requirement driven by the chemistry of feeder insects. I'll cover the Ca:P issue in detail per feeder below, but the short version is this: nearly every feeder insect, including both discoid roaches and katydids, carries far more phosphorus than calcium. The ratio is inverted relative to what reptiles require for bone health. Metabolic bone disease (MBD) in blue tongue skinks — soft bones, deformities, pathological fractures — is one of the most preventable conditions in captive reptiles and one of the most common. The Merck Veterinary Manual's overview of reptile nutrition addresses how inverted Ca:P from feeder insects drives MBD directly and is worth reading once for any reptile keeper. The preventive is consistent calcium and D3 supplementation on feeder insects, every session.

How blue tongue skinks prefer to hunt

One behavioral trait shapes which feeders work best: skinks are methodical, deliberate foragers. They're not ambush predators and not high-speed chasers. They investigate potential food items with their tongues — the blue, chemosensory tongue that gives them their name — before committing. They typically prefer prey that moves slowly enough to assess and take reliably. This means:

• ◆Slower prey like roaches suits their natural hunting style; they can locate, assess, and take a roach without chasing
• ◆Very fast or erratically moving prey can be stimulating or can be frustrating, depending on the individual
• ◆They're generally less dependent on prey movement to trigger feeding than visually-oriented predators like chameleons
• ◆Some individuals do benefit meaningfully from the enrichment value of active, mobile prey — which is where katydids have a genuine niche

Discoid roaches for blue tongue skinks

Discoid roaches (Blaberus discoidalis) are the feeder I recommend as the center of a blue tongue skink's insect rotation. Let me lay out what they are, what they deliver nutritionally, and the correction every keeper needs about the Ca:P situation.

Biology: what you're working with

Discoids are tropical roaches native to Central and South America, in the family Blaberidae. Adults reach roughly two inches in length, with a flattened, glossy oval body and the characteristic dark-bordered pronotum pattern that earns them the alternate name "false death's head roach." They undergo incomplete metamorphosis, with females giving live birth to nymphs rather than depositing an exposed egg case. The ootheca develops internally, and females birth live nymphs — typically 20–40 per cycle — without the incubation complications of a laid egg case.

Two properties matter most for a keeper feeding them to a skink:

Adult discoids cannot climb smooth vertical surfaces. They lack the adhesive tarsal pads that climbing roaches use on glass and smooth plastic. This is not marginal — it's a fundamental containment property that makes colony management and feeding sessions dramatically cleaner. A smooth-walled bin or feeding dish holds them without any modification. (Small nymphs can slip through coarse openings, so fine-mesh ventilation still matters for a colony, but adult containment is not a problem.)

Their exoskeleton is genuinely low in chitin. Chitin is the structural polysaccharide that makes up insect shells. High-chitin feeders increase digestive load and, in volume, can cause impaction or irritation — especially in animals that are young, ill, or elderly. Discoids have a softer, lower-chitin body than crickets or most beetles of comparable size, which translates to gentler digestion and better nutrient absorption per feeder. For a skink that eats insects multiple times a week over a 15-to-20-year lifespan, that digestibility compounds.

Nutritional breakdown: concrete numbers

Feeder insect nutrition varies with diet, life stage, and source, so treat these as ballpark central tendencies, not fixed values. The relationships between feeders are reliable even when specific numbers shift.

Discoid roaches on a well-managed gut-loaded diet run approximately:

• ◆Protein: ~20% on an as-fed basis — increases on a dry-weight basis, since moisture dilutes as-fed figures
• ◆Fat: ~6–8% — moderate; comfortably below the high-fat territory of superworms (~15%) or waxworms (~22%)
• ◆Moisture: ~60–65% — meaningful hydration content; a skink eating discoids gets some water with every meal
• ◆Chitin: low relative to crickets or beetle grubs of similar size

That protein-to-fat ratio is what you want from a staple feeder. High-fat feeders become obesity drivers when offered regularly. Discoids hit solid protein without the fat load, which is the combination to build a rotation around.

The Ca:P reality — what most guides get wrong

Here is the correction that matters most and gets wrong most often: discoid roaches do not have a favorable calcium-to-phosphorus ratio. You will see this claim in a lot of feeder guides and marketing, and it is not accurate. Like virtually every feeder insect — dubia, crickets, mealworms, superworms, katydids, and nearly every other common species — discoids are heavily phosphorus-dominant. The Ca:P ratio in discoids runs approximately 1:3 to 1:7 depending on diet and source, which is the inverse of what a reptile needs for healthy bone mineralization. Feeding undusted discoids over time is not nutritionally neutral; it actively works against calcium balance.

This is not a reason to avoid discoids. It is a reason to dust them with calcium supplement before every feeder session. The right mental model: discoids deliver excellent protein in an easy-to-digest package, and you supply the calcium on the outside. Gut-loading with calcium-rich greens genuinely helps the broader nutrition profile, but it does not convert a phosphorus-heavy insect into a calcium-positive one.

The one common feeder that genuinely breaks this pattern is black soldier fly larvae (BSFL, sold as Phoenix Worms or CalciWorms), which sequester calcium in their cuticle in a way that gives them a Ca:P ratio that actually favors calcium. BSFL are worth rotating in for exactly this reason. For every other common feeder including discoids, assume it needs dusting.

Why discoid roaches suit blue tongue skinks specifically

Beyond the nutrition data, a few practical traits make discoids well-matched to skinks:

Pace. Discoids walk steadily and don't sprint, jump, or fly under normal circumstances (adult males have wings but very rarely use them). A blue tongue skink, which approaches food deliberately, can locate, assess, and take a discoid without a chase. This alignment with the skink's natural hunting style means successful feeding sessions even with less motivated or older animals.

Size range. Discoid nymphs cover from just-hatched pinheads through large sub-adults, with adults at roughly two inches. That range accommodates juvenile skinks through large adults with the same feeder species. You don't need to switch feeders as the animal grows — you just move up through the size range.

Gut-loadability. Discoids are enthusiastic eaters that rapidly take up nutrition from fresh produce and protein chow. The 24–48 hours before you harvest for feeding are the window that matters most: load the roaches with nutrient-dense food, and your skink gets that nutrition indirectly. A well-gut-loaded discoid is meaningfully more nutritious than one that's been sitting in a bare container for a week.

Colony reliability. A properly established discoid colony produces year-round with minimal inputs. The feeder pipeline never goes empty due to season, supplier stock, or weather — which matters for an animal you'll feed insects to for the next decade or two.

Katydids for blue tongue skinks

Katydids (family Tettigoniidae) are a genuinely different kind of feeder: larger, more mobile, leaf-shaped orthopteran insects whose behavioral value for skinks is real even if the logistics are complicated.

What katydids are

Katydids are long-horned orthopterans, related to crickets and grasshoppers. Most feeder-relevant species are built for camouflage — flat, green, leaf-textured bodies, very long antennae, powerful hindlegs, and large wings in adults. Feeder-sized katydids typically range from an inch to over two inches in body length, with legs extending further. They're vocal: males produce their characteristic rasp by stridulating their wings, though this matters more to backyard naturalists than to keepers.

For blue tongue skinks, the behavioral angle is the real argument. A large, actively moving, visually complex insect engages a skink differently than a slow-moving roach. Skinks may stalk a katydid around the enclosure, using tongue-flicking to track it, then commit to a lunge. That level of engagement has value: it's enrichment, it mirrors foraging behavior the animal would use in the wild, and it can restart the appetite of a skink that's grown indifferent to its usual feeders. The katydid's role is enrichment and variety, and it performs that role well.

Nutritional profile

Katydid nutrition is less thoroughly documented in the feeder literature than roach nutrition, partly because they're not commonly maintained in large captive colonies with controlled feeding studies. From what's known about orthopteran nutrition generally:

• ◆Protein content is solid — in a similar range to discoids and crickets, with some species running somewhat higher
• ◆Fat tends to be lower than discoids, making them a lean option
• ◆Moisture is variable — softer younger insects carry more, fully developed adults carry less
• ◆Chitin is moderate to higher than discoids. Katydids have tougher, more developed exoskeletons than roaches of similar size, and their legs carry visible spines. Those spiny hindlegs are the piece to watch: they can cause mouth or digestive tract irritation if a too-large katydid is swallowed with minimal chewing, which is more of a risk with fast, imprecise feeding than with careful tong-feeding

On the Ca:P question: same correction as discoids, same family of insects, same structural chemistry. Katydids are phosphorus-heavy feeders. Dust them with calcium before every feeding session. Any source that claims katydids have a "relatively favorable" or "balanced" Ca:P ratio is repeating a common error. Supplementation is not optional for katydids any more than it is for discoids.

The wild-sourcing problem

Here is the piece of katydid use that matters most and gets addressed least: the vast majority of katydids in the feeder trade are wild-caught or sourced from small seasonal producers, not from controlled captive colonies.

That has two significant consequences.

Pesticide and herbicide contamination. Katydids in the wild feed on vegetation, and in agricultural and suburban environments that vegetation is routinely treated. A katydid that fed on sprayed plants before collection is carrying chemical residues. Repeated pesticide exposure accumulates in an animal's system, causing health effects that don't appear immediately and can be difficult to trace to cause when they do. The University of Florida's Department of Entomology and Nematology and other university extension programs flag pesticide contamination as the primary safety concern with wild-harvested feeder insects, precisely because it's invisible — you cannot assess it from the insect's appearance.

Parasites. Wild-caught insects carry parasites that captive-bred insects in controlled environments don't. Internal parasites from a feeder insect can establish in a reptile host and cause health problems that take time to surface. Captive-bred populations maintained without exposure to wild parasite cycles represent substantially lower risk.

Captive-bred katydids: the right source, when you can find one

Captive-bred katydids from dedicated operations that maintain them on clean, known plant material in controlled environments are the appropriate source if you want to include katydids in a skink's diet. A well-sourced captive-bred katydid is a genuinely nutritious, interesting enrichment feeder. The problem is that captive-bred katydids are difficult to find, expensive when you locate them, and inconsistently available even from specialty suppliers. This is not a feeder you'll source twice a week year-round. Treat it accordingly: an enrichment item you offer when you can get clean ones, not a feeder you try to build a schedule around.

Head-to-head comparison table

Here's the full comparison across the dimensions that matter for a blue tongue skink keeper. Nutrition figures are approximate as-fed averages on a gut-loaded diet; relationships are more reliable than specific numbers.

The pattern is clear: discoids win nearly every practical column, while katydids win on one genuine axis — behavioral stimulation and enrichment. That's not nothing, which is exactly why the real answer is "use both in different roles," not "pick one."

Breeding discoid roaches for your skink: a practical setup

One of the strongest arguments for discoids as a skink staple is that you can breed them at home, get ahead of your feeding schedule, and reduce ongoing cost to near zero after initial setup.

Enclosure and structure

The basic setup: an opaque plastic storage bin (opacity keeps the colony calmer and breeding more actively, since discoids are nocturnal), with vertical cardboard egg flats inside for surface area, hiding, and easy harvest. Cover ventilation openings with fine metal mesh — not coarse screen, which tiny nymphs can walk through. Adults won't climb the smooth walls, but newborn nymphs are small enough to escape through coarse ventilation if you don't seal it properly.

Temperature: the thing that decides everything

Target 85–90°F in the warm zone. Below 80°F, reproduction slows dramatically. At room temperature in the low 70s, it effectively stops. Mount the heat source on the side of the bin, not the bottom — discoids cluster low, and bottom heat cooks them from underneath. Use a thermostat to hold the warm zone at around 88°F, with the far end of the bin left cooler for a thermal gradient. Verify with a thermometer, not an assumption. More colony failures trace to "colder than the keeper realized" than to any other cause.

Hold 60–70% humidity with water crystals in a shallow dish (safest), a damp sponge in a dish (cheap but requires rinsing), or occasional light misting of one corner. A cheap hygrometer removes the guesswork.

Feeding the colony

Run the colony on a dry protein base available at all times (commercial roach chow or whole-grain mix) plus rotating fresh produce — carrot, sweet potato, squash, leafy greens. For 24–48 hours before a harvest session, load the diet with nutrient-dense material so the roaches you pull are packed with nutrition. Pull, dust, feed to the skink within a short window so the gut-load is at peak. Rotate produce variety; different plants bring different micronutrients.

Colony management rhythm

Don't over-harvest early. Give a new colony 4–6 months before pulling significant numbers, so the first home-grown generation can mature. Once the colony is producing, harvest regularly to prevent overcrowding — a wall-to-wall-crowded bin stresses and slows breeding. Clean out accumulated frass and shed skins a couple of times per year; spot-clean mold and old produce as you see it. Check the thermostat at season changes; a cold snap can quietly stall a colony before you notice.

For well-started colonies at multiple sizes — whether you're starting a home colony or topping an existing one up — All Angles Creatures carries discoid roaches sized for both breeding stock and direct feeding.

Why home-breeding katydids almost never works

I want to be honest about this because it affects the cost calculation significantly.

Katydids lay eggs in soil or plant material. Many species require a diapause period — a cold dormancy phase — before eggs will develop, and the incubation period afterward can stretch from several months to over a year depending on species. Compare that to discoid nymphs, which are born live and begin feeding immediately. Katydid habitat requirements are specific: they need vertical space to climb, live or very fresh plant material to feed on (some species have narrow plant preferences), higher humidity than discoids (70–80%), and temperature management. Nymph mortality in early instars is meaningful even with good husbandry.

Adult katydids live for weeks to a couple of months in their adult stage — a much shorter reproductive window than discoid adults, which can live well over a year. The combination of slow egg development, specific habitat demands, fragile early nymphs, and short adult phase makes a self-sustaining home katydid supply impractical for most keepers. Treat them as a specialty item you source when you want them. The economics don't support home production for the quantity a single blue tongue skink needs.

Cost over the life of the animal

Blue tongue skinks live 15–20 years with good care. Feeder economics compound over that span.

Discoid colony economics: A starter mixed colony costs $20–50. After initial setup (bin, heat source, thermostat, egg flats), ongoing cost is produce scraps, roach chow, and a few watts of electricity — roughly $5–10 per month for a single-skink operation. The colony self-replenishes indefinitely. Over a 15-year skink, the per-feeder marginal cost trends toward zero after the first year.

Katydid ongoing economics: Specialty suppliers price katydids at roughly $0.50–2.00 per insect depending on size and rarity of the source. Two enrichment sessions per month at six insects per session is $6–24 per month — just for a fraction of the insect portion of the diet. Supply dries up seasonally, sometimes raising prices further. Over a 15-year skink, that recurring cost is significant compared to the nearly self-sustaining colony model.

This is not an argument against using katydids — enrichment and variety have real value. It's context for why they belong in the "enrichment rotation" budget, not the "daily staple" budget.

Feeding technique and practical tips

Whether you're offering discoids, katydids, or a mix, the same principles apply.

Sizing feeders to the animal

The rule: no feeder longer than the width of the space between the skink's eyes, and nothing wider than the skink's head. For katydids, factor in the leg span, not just body length. Juveniles get small discoid nymphs in the half-inch to one-inch range; sub-adults get medium nymphs; adults can take large nymphs and adults. When in doubt about katydids, go a size down — the spiny legs make an oversized katydid a worse mistake than an oversized roach.

Gut-loading: the window that matters

Load insects with nutrient-rich food for 24–48 hours before feeding off. Pull the feeders from the colony into a clean container and offer a concentrated mix of leafy greens, sweet potato, squash, and protein chow. The nutrients in the insect's gut at the moment your skink eats it are what your skink actually absorbs. An empty insect that's been in a bare cup since shipping delivers poor nutrition regardless of its species. This step costs almost nothing and makes a measurable difference.

Dusting: non-negotiable for both feeders

Toss feeders in a small container with a pinch of plain calcium powder and shake gently until lightly coated. Offer within a few minutes — the dust dissipates as the insects move. Use calcium-with-D3 or a reptile multivitamin on a weekly rotation; on other sessions, plain calcium is sufficient. D3 requirements depend on your UVB setup — an animal with good UVB lighting needs D3 from supplements less often than one without, but a light, scheduled dose is cheap insurance. Don't skip dusting because you gut-loaded well. Gut-loading and dusting are not alternatives to each other; they address different nutritional gaps.

Feeding technique

Tongs give the most control: you can wiggle a discoid to add movement (good for picky or low-stimulation eaters), present it at a consistent angle, and remove uneaten feeders without digging. Feeding dishes work well too — smooth-walled dishes contain discoids cleanly, and you can remove uneaten ones in one lift.

With katydids, supervise closely. Their jumping ability means a katydid you think is in the enclosure may suddenly be in your wall. Feed katydids in a contained way — either offer with tongs, use a tall-sided container for the feeding session, or watch the enclosure until the insect is taken. Don't leave live katydids in the enclosure overnight; they can injure a shedding or sleeping skink with those spiny legs, or die and become a hygiene issue.

Frequency by life stage

Juveniles: protein-heavy and frequent. Appropriately sized discoid nymphs (or other feeders), dusted with calcium at most feedings and calcium-plus-D3 a couple of times per week, plus finely chopped greens offered daily. Growth at this stage is calcium-demanding — don't skip dusting.

Sub-adults (roughly 1–2 years): begin shifting the balance toward plants. Insects every other day or so, daily greens, fruit occasionally. Watch body condition; sub-adults can get chunky quickly on all-protein diets.

Adults: insect protein 2–3 times per week, daily or near-daily vegetables making up roughly half the overall diet, fruit only occasionally. Most adults maintain best on this schedule; obesity from excess protein and fat is a real and common problem in adult blue tongue skinks.

Recovering or gravid females: bump calcium and overall nutrition. Egg production or live-young bearing is a heavy calcium draw. Check with a reptile vet for an animal that's reproductively active or showing weight loss.

After the meal: cleanup

Remove uneaten insects promptly. Live discoids left in the enclosure may burrow into substrate and bite a resting or shedding skink. Dead katydids attract mold and pests. This cleanup habit also keeps enclosure hygiene consistent, which matters for animals you're keeping for 15 to 20 years.

Building the full rotation

Both discoids and katydids are only part of the picture. A blue tongue skink's insect rotation works best when multiple feeders fill different niches:

Discoid roaches (staple, most insect sessions): High protein, moderate fat, low chitin, year-round, breedable. Build the insect portion of the diet around these.

Black soldier fly larvae (every 1–2 weeks): The one common feeder with a genuinely favorable Ca:P ratio. Rotate in especially for juveniles and breeding females, who face higher calcium demands. Doesn't replace dusting, but adds a genuine calcium contribution.

Hornworms (occasional): Very high moisture (~85%), low fat, soft-bodied — excellent for hydration and for tempting a picky skink. Not nutritionally dense enough to anchor protein intake, but a good supplement.

Katydids (occasional enrichment, clean source only): The behavioral value is real. A katydid session once or twice a month from a captive-bred source adds stimulation and variety. Don't use wild-caught ones.

Crickets (occasional variety): Familiar stimulus feeder, louder and smellier than roaches, higher chitin, more parasite-prone historically — fine in rotation, poor as a staple.

Superworms and waxworms (rare treats): High fat means they drive obesity quickly if offered regularly. Treat-tier, monthly at most.

On the non-insect protein side: cooked lean chicken, scrambled eggs without seasoning, quality canned dog food (grain-free, high-meat), and canned snails all fit naturally into the protein portion of an omnivore skink's diet. Rotating these in reduces total dependence on insects for protein and introduces different amino acid profiles.

Health risks and safety considerations

Sizing-related impaction

Covered above, but worth its own mention: impaction from oversized prey is real and preventable. If a skink takes a feeder too large, watch for absence of defecation over 2–3 weeks, bloating, lethargy, or refusal to eat. A skink that's clearly uncomfortable after a large feeder warrants a vet call.

The pesticide and parasite hierarchy

The risk ladder for these two feeders:

1. ◆Wild-caught katydids: highest risk — pesticide contamination and parasites are both documented and serious
2. ◆Katydids from small seasonal operations with unknown husbandry: meaningful risk
3. ◆Captive-bred katydids from established operations with clean practices: low risk
4. ◆Captive-bred discoids from a clean colony: lowest risk

If you observe vomiting, neurological signs, or sudden lethargy after introducing a new feeder, suspect contamination, discontinue that feeder, and consult a reptile vet.

Allergenic proteins for handlers

Discoid roach frass and shed exoskeletons can be allergenic to humans with insect or shellfish sensitivity. If you develop skin irritation, sneezing, or respiratory symptoms during colony maintenance, wear gloves and a dust mask for colony work. This is a keeper health issue, not a skink issue, but it's worth noting for anyone starting a colony.

Environmental footprint

For keepers who care about the sustainability of their husbandry practices, discoids are the cleaner choice by a clear margin. They thrive on a diet that can incorporate vegetable scraps that would otherwise be composted or discarded. They convert feed to body mass efficiently. A colony fits in compact housing with modest electricity for heat. Their frass composts readily, and their soft bodies break down quickly. The carbon footprint per unit of protein delivered is low.

Katydids are more resource-intensive: their diet requires consistent fresh or live vegetation, they need larger enclosures with more vertical space, their waste accumulates faster and breaks down more slowly (tougher exoskeletons decompose slowly), and wild-sourcing adds the footprint of collection and transport. None of this makes katydids environmentally harmful in the scheme of things, but if sustainability factors into your decisions, it points the same direction as everything else.

My recommendation

For a blue tongue skink keeper making a real feeding decision, this is where I land.

Run discoid roaches as your staple feeder insect. Set up a colony, dial in the heat and humidity, gut-load properly for 24–48 hours before harvest, and dust with calcium at every session. A well-run discoid colony is the most reliable, cost-effective, nutritionally solid insect feeding system you can operate at home. Its only meaningful weaknesses — slow colony ramp, occasionally under-stimulating movement — are minor and manageable. The one thing you must never forget: discoids, like nearly every feeder insect, are phosphorus-heavy. They require calcium dusting. They are not the naturally balanced feeder that old marketing claims, and skipping supplementation costs you MBD over the long run.

Add katydids occasionally from a captive-bred, clean source. Two to four times a month when you can find a reputable supplier, katydids deliver something discoids don't: a behavioral trigger that re-engages a sluggish hunter, size and movement that look like wild prey, and genuine dietary variety. Just confirm the source is captive-bred and clean, never use wild-caught ones, and size them conservatively given those spiny legs.

Build the rest of the rotation. Black soldier fly larvae for the genuine Ca:P contribution. Hornworms when your skink needs hydration or a palate reset. Non-insect protein (eggs, cooked chicken, canned dog food) for variety. And half the diet in greens and vegetables, every week, without exception.

The "ultimate showdown" framing implies a winner and a loser. The more useful framing is that discoids and katydids fill different slots in the same diet, and the diet that serves your skink best uses both — discoids as the dependable backbone, katydids as the interesting enrichment rotation. Neither one alone is the answer. The answer is a varied, properly supplemented, omnivore-appropriate diet that happens to include both.

For a full deep-dive on establishing and running a discoid colony, see How to Keep Discoid Roaches Alive: A Breeder's Complete Playbook, or browse the full exotic animal feeder library for hornworms, silkworms, black soldier fly larvae, and the rest of the rotation.