Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have heard that mealworms really do not have much in the way of nutrition, and the exoskeletons are hard to digest i just found out. So I was wondering, is it worth it to buy those jars of freeze dried crickets or the cans or them that are "in their juices"? Is there enough nutrition in them and which would be better? What if not those, would be the best food to feed amphibians? I have a tiger salamander, 4 fire bellied toads and a grey tree frog, i would like something i can feed to them all but has lots of nutrition. Any help would be appreciated. Thankyou

Of course fresh is best, but nothing wrong with the canned crickets. But only consider this route if you routinely handfeed them.

The canned crickets I got were from the field cricket (black crickets) which have very tough and spikey hoppers. I removed the hoppers before feeding; although they have been cooked, they still looked too spikey.

JadeFox

Man, most of my frogs won't touch anything that's not moving. I have several species (tree frogs, mostly). My oriental firebelly likes tubeflex (sic?) worm cubes, just rip them into bite sized chuncks. I don't know how nutritionaly complete they are. Mostly I feed the pod pet store crickets, live, gutloaded and occasionaly dusted. I've heard from several people about the dangers of sharp legs, but have had no problems in three years of frogery. Perhaps it's the larger crickets that people feed thier pac mans. Or maybe I've been lucky.

My american grey tree frog is doing fine on above diet (2yrs old and probably too fat for his own good).

I heard the same about mealworms also, too late and i bought some, most of mine are mummyfying and few are larveing(?) lol but out in the wild the bugs they eat all have hard shells, crickets,grasshoppers etc, my anole use to eat full grown blk crickets with no problem, just took his time swollowing is all. I feel the frogs will have no problemm with these worms as well, so im not worried. I also recieved a can of crickets for my frogs, i think you can put live with canned together and see what happens thats what i plan on doing when i get frogs. good luck.
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My roomates are 1BP,1BCI2corns,Rotti,3cats,desert scorpions, and snake food AKA the food chain. See my kids at: http://community.webshots.com/user/diggy415

If you keep a couple of fresh apple slices in with the mealworms, they won't mummify. I use them only for a couple of lizards that like them for an occasional treat, but have recently attempted to gut-load them by adding powdered vitamins and calcium to their meal, or even some Fluker's gut load meant for crickets. Of course this is not a controlled experiment, because I have no idea if they are getting gut-loaded or not. You can also dampen and dust them, so some of the vitamin dust adheres for awhile.

By the way, the big "superworms" which are way too large for most frogs, make great fish bait. I ordered some, but they were too large my desert lizards, so my step-son tried them out in a local trout stream and caught 10 brookies in about 20 minutes.
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Patty
Pahsimeroi, Idaho

4 D. auratus blue
5 D. galactonotus pumpkin orange splash back
5 D. imitator
6 D. leucomelas
4 D. pumilio Bastimentos
4 D. fantasticus
4 P. terribilis (new froglets)

Mealworms have been reported to be problomatic when used as the total diet and/or for herps that do not masticate the mealworms throughly.

You can gutload calcium by keeping the mealworms in the high calcium supplement but the mealworms often show decreased growth and higher mortality as the calcium causes problems for the mealworm.
The meal worms need to be kept in the supplement for a minimum of 48 hours and then should be immediatly fed to the comsuming animal.

Most of the finely ground supplements will adhere well to mealworms but if this is a concern then the mealworms can be placed in a shallow dish with the supplement and when the frog or other animal grabs the mealworm some of the supplement sticks to the animal's tongue.

Ed

I use them and like it because it eliminates keeping live feeders. Not to mention the diversity of foods available, catepillars, grasshoppers, and snails are foods you can't find being offered in pet stores. Of course I supplement with live feeders a few times a month. Zoomed claims their product is different from being freeze-dried, somehow they lock in all of the nutrients. I keep mine in the freezer because they grow mold so quickly in the refrigerator.
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...the oldest task in human history: to live on a piece of land without spoiling it."
Aldo Leopold (1938)

"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
Calvin and Hobbes (Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink', 1991)

Haven't used them, really haven't paid attention to the label to see if I could form a better opinion of them.
That said, heat labile nutrients are often lost in the canning process so they probably will not be as good as well fed live feeders.

Ed