Reptile & Amphibian Forums

With mealworms;

I am raising a group of dragons on mealworms alone, this is an experiment to determine growth and overall health.

Last week all my dragons stop feeding on the mealworms, they refused them and seem to prefer starving them mealworms. They also refused minimealworms witch they usually go crazy for.

At first I tot this could be boredom from a single food source, but after investigating I really think its about toxicity, perhaps from the peal of carrots witch may contain chemical residue?
If anyone experienced this before any comment would be appreciated.

Meanwhile Iv discarded the entire mealworm colony as these toxins I am told will remain in the bug its entire life cycle.

Rgds

Thought, not tot. LoL.

When you say "From the peel of the carrots", do you mean toxins from the carrots get in the mealworms wich the dragons don't like?

I been feeding carrots to my crickets, and they still like the crickets...

It makes since though, what you are saying.

Ryan
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Ryan

jobi,
I'm not sure about the carrot thing. It seems more likely that the mealworms have caused some type of digestive problem as a result of the hard exoskeletons. I have found that with smaller lizards, a diet of exclusivly mealworms can lead to regurgitation, and refusal of foodstuff. There was an instance where I was feeding a carniviorous diet consisting of mainly mealworms to all my carniviorous lizards. There was a point where, after eating their fill of the worms, all the lizards except a blue tegu, either threw up the worms, which were hardly digested, or died. I think that an exclusive diet of these worms is just too hard on most lizards, and can lead to impactions or a loss of tolerance for the food. I hope this helps you.

Regards, Evan

I understand what you are saying, however many breeders including me have demonstrated this to be temperature dependent, mealworms cause digestive problems when lizards are kept at lower then optimal temps, otherwise they have no problem digesting them.

Furthermore if this was a case of impaction, not all of the 32 dragons would be affected at the same time, some of them would still try to eat them, but not the case it’s a cold turkey stop.

However I agree with you about the carrots not necessarily being at fault.

Other possibilities need to be investigated.

I keep my worms on laying mash, and I spray them almost everyday, a pro breeder told me this can cause toxic mould? This in combination with potato and carrot peals might be at cause, also when I start a culture in 2in of laying mash, a few months later the mash is replaced by a fine dust (faeces?) sins this is dry I figured simply adding new mash over it will do! But now I think this can be the problem?

In any case I discarded all and started new bins that I will keep very clean and will not spray. I will peal my carrots though! As studies have shown they do harbour pesticides residue.

In the early 80s up till 92-93 I produced 10,000s leopard geckos, chuckwallas and Baja blue lizards on mealworms alone, other then light from window no lights whatsoever just a strip of flex watt, I am by no mean proud of this, I may have contributed to the rack system herpetoculture.

Now days I think these awful racks are a reflection of human greed, they don’t do justice to captive reptiles, hopefully one day laws will forbid them or better yet keepers will shun them, and take there animals from caring breeders.

Anyway I just wanted you to know that feeding mealworms exclusively under good husbandry is not a problem. Of course this was a study I don’t advise mealworms as staple, in fact this study was to show there weakness compared to crickets.

Pleas feel free share other ideas, I always appreciate them.

Rgds

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!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html

Thanks for all the info, I hope to get some roaches ASAP

These crickets are annoying me big time!

Rgds

Jobi and forggieB,
Thanks for the info about the temps and the worms, very interesting. This makes sense once I think about it.
As far as "mash" goes what is it? FroggieB said something about it being chicken feed? I don't breed any feeders as my collection isn't large enough to merit such efforts, but I'm still curious about this.
I must say that I do agree with you, utterly and completly, about the rack caging systems employed for the husbandry of reptiles. I find it to be confining and completly un-stimulating for the captive animal. As far as you using them, we all have times where we do what we think works best until something informs us that we might be doing it wrong. Don't beat yourself up about it, you've ovbiously contributed enough good to the field to make up for any wrongdoing

Regards, EMWhite

Laying mash is mostly calcium minerals extracted strait from quarries, it’s basically a brut product, this makes it a premium calcium supplement. I have never tried regular chicken mash but I think it’s quit deferent in composition, this even though the grains look similar.

Eventually I may grind it up to a fine powder and use it to dust insects.

If I find a substitute for D3.

Rgds

the laying mash here in the states is ground grains mixed with calcium, vitamins and minerals. It is formulated for high egg production and well calcifified shells on the eggs.

A lot of earthworm breeders use it claiming increased egg production with earthworms. I can't argue as I got great results using it to raise my mealies.

The argument that was raised with using this product is that there are trace poisons in it and that used over time these toxins accumulate in the livers of the baby reptiles. I was told to sacrifice one of my babies at 1-year to study the liver to see if this was the case before I decide that layer mash was really safe.

I don't know enough about biology to do this study and my production is too low to do this. Maybe this is a study that Jobi is up to! I don't know, I have to also wonder if this isn't just the brainwashing of the industry that wants to sell us the insect chow that costs $3 for a little jar!
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Marcia - FroggieB Dragons
www.froggieb.com/MHDHome.html