Are giant mealworms safe to feed to my reptiles? I have heard that they are just regular mealworms given steroids. Is that true? Any help would be great. Thanks!
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Giant Mealworms, Unsafe?
geckoh
Feb 03, 2004 05:25 PM
Replies (7)
hbailey
Feb 03, 2004 05:33 PM
If you mean super mealworms, than the answer is no, they are not the same. Yes, they are safe. I feed them to my monitors and my butterfly agamas.
roachey56
Feb 03, 2004 05:34 PM
There are Giant MEALWORMS and superworms giant mealworms are just big mealworms superworms are totally different specie. Superworms are easier to digest than mealworms.
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geckoh
Feb 03, 2004 05:39 PM
I mean actual GIANT MEALWORMS. Not superworms. Thanks!
roachey56
Feb 03, 2004 07:51 PM
giant mealworms are just big mealworms. They are the same species as normal but bigger.
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rodmalm
Feb 03, 2004 09:28 PM
First, Giant Mealworms are safe.
They are regular mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) that have been treated with an IGR (Insect Growth Regulator). An IGR is a type of insect hormone that makes them molt an excess number of times (and go through to many instar stages) so they grow too large to molt into adults. (It was developed as a safer method of insect control than insecticides). It doesn't kill them, just stops them from being able to reproduce.
Zoophobas (kingworms) are a different species.
Also, it it safe to eat growth hormones anyway. Once inside the stomach, they are quickly ripped apart into various proteins--they don't enter the blood stream as a hormone. In order for hormones to affect you, they would have to be injected directly into the blood stream. Also these hormones are very species specific. A growth hormone that works on a cow, for instance, wouldn't affect a human even if it was injected into a human's blood stream directly! Bovine growth hormones are injected, not put into the feed, for this reason. (Which is why people being concerned with hormones being given to cattle is a bunch of nonsense.)
Rodney
roachey56
Feb 04, 2004 07:20 AM
so you can't breed giant mealworms?
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WhisQuila
Feb 04, 2004 01:17 PM
no you can't.
If you want a worm that you can breed regular sized mealworms are the easiest.
However if you require large worms just get superworms.
It takes some doing to breed these guys cuz you need to separate some worms and let them tranform into beetles and then you put the beetles in a different container.
Do a search in the forum and you will find numerous posts on breeding superworms.
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Later,
WhisQuila
