I have actually raised baby MHDs on mostly mealworms in the past. Not proud of it maybe, but it can be done in a pinch!

I would lean more to the toxic mold. I avoid spraying the mash. I don't give just carrots either. I really like to use apples, summer squash and sweet potatoes. Carrots to me are quite bitter and if you read about organic gardening you find that one of the things used to prepare the soil for organic gardening is planting and discarding several crops of carrots because they will take the toxins out of the soil. Therefore I feel that they are going to take up every toxin that there is in the soil. So, I lean more for some of the other veggies that have carotin in them. I guess I don't love carrots as much as I used too either! Don't get me wrong, I do use carrots too, but I also make sure that I rotate in other foods too.

This is an interesting topic. I will say that since I have been feeding roaches my dragons won't eat mealworms exclusively. They will eat them, but not as a staple. They also won't eat silks or any other food as a staple other than roaches. They will eat anything I put in other than roaches when I put it in. But they always eat the roaches first if that is what I put in first! So, if I want to feed them some silks or something else I put those in and let them feed. Then I put in the roaches later and let them have at them.

Even my 8-mo-olds that are eating nightcrawlers now won't eat nightcrawlers if they have roaches available. So, I will offer them the worms first. Then I put in the dish of roaches. By mid-day there are none left!

Lots of ramble, sorry!



I also have always used laying mash until recently. I got a real lashing on the feeder forum from a guy who stated that all mash contains some toxins. I always made sure to get the un-medicated but just don't know. I sure don't see how it can contain anything that isn't on the label if we are feeding it to our chickens!

However, I always made sure that I kept it dry and clean. I would periodically remove the worms to a new bin of fresh clean mash and sift out the new worms as they hatched out until there were none left and then throw out the feces filled dirty stuff. Otherwise the feces does get pretty deep in the bottom and the dust is a killer with my allergies!
-----
Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

[ Reply To This Message ] [ Subscribe to this Thread ] [ Show Entire Thread ]