Reptile & Amphibian Forums

well some people say its bad to use earth worms as a staple diet cause it can cause problems other dont. What do you guys think?

Im feeding my pacman off worms with crickets but the crickets dont keep as well as the worms. So id like to switch to mainly earth worms with a supplement on them.. the suppletment is mainly for the calcium but also has vitamin d in it.

I've heard of people that uses them for a staple diet without any problems, I personally use them sometimes as an option to crickets. Though I have learned on this forum from EdK that a staple earthworm diet has lead to muscle problems in anurans.
So, you can draw your own conclusion on this.
Hope it helped.
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CokeOfMan

Hmmm, wish i knew why. And i wonder if this would happen with a supplement

Supplementation may correct this, but so far it has not been covered in the literature. In the study bullfrogs on a all worm diet developed a disease of the muscles, frogs on the all cricket diet developed "MBD", frogs fed fish developed normally with no problems (Not goldfish), and frogs fed all three in equal amounts developed normally.
If you feed worms vary the diet.

Ed

It is a good idea to start feeding him worns again. Crickets do not have enough calcium for a young frog unless there gutloaded. The pac man and african bullfrog book says that worms, large insects, and fish are good, but mice are not because thay are too fatty.
~Matt

Worms are only suitable if they are kept in calcium rich soil (not the "soil" they come in when you buy them) as otherwise they are insufficient in calcium.Dusting corrects this in crickets and worms.
I e-mailed the author about that information on mice being too fatty and it was based on some data that has since been made more complete.
If you compare rodents and feeder insects on a usable nutrition level by kcals of usable energy, rodents are no more fatty than crickets. The difference is that on a volume basis rodents are more dense meaning that the frog should be fed less frequently to compensate.

Ed

I do dust my worms.. And thanks for the info ont he mice.. Tho i am going to confirm it my self because i never go off what anyone says till i got the facts hehe.. but that dose sound logical..

You can start in Mader's book on Reptile Medicine and check out the chapter on Nutrition (one of the authors went on to found Walkabout Farms Reptile and Amphibian Nutritional Support).

When weighing well fed adult crickets (48 hours post arrival with constant access to food and water on a Ohaus scale accurate to 4 sig figs I got 4 adult crickets (2 males and 2 females) to weigh 1.23 grams which is the same sized pinkie referenced in Mader's book so there is the equivalence.

Ed