Feeding and Nutrition :: Mealworms

[the_orphaned]

I just tried it again, but Turt is still not interested in mealworms. I might have to go back to feeder fish when I transfer her to her bigger place for her protein intake. I gave up on frozen bloodworms because they dirty up the water quickly.

[xsavingsaturdayx]

You can try cricket's? Make sure you gutload them with good food before feeding it to your turtle. I'm not exactly sure, but I think people feed their cricket's alot of veggie's, and that is what they gutload them with (someone correct me if I am wrong..)

Though if you plan on feeding your turtle already dead canned cricket's, you dont have to gutload them obviously.

I'd say feeder fish would be okay. Just make sure the pet shop or wherever you get them from keep's them in a nice clean aquarium, meaning, no dead fish floating around and yucky water! Watch out for that.

[kmichael55]

There is a product called Cricket Gut-Load on cricketfood.com "Our Premium Blend Cricket Gutload and our Premium Blend Superworm & Mealworm Bedding recipes includes various grains, dried vegetables, dried fruits, nuts, seeds, acidophilus, bee pollen, and calcium carbonate totaling over 30 separate ingredients in all!" there is also Fluker's Orange Cube Complete Cricket Diet, they don't get into specifics but "This diet contains concentrated vitamins and minerals to "gut load" crickets and other feeder insects before they're fed to reptiles." I personally could never deal with live crickets, I used to with my leopard gecko but they got out into the apartment too much...ick

[DavidY]

When you gut-load your crickets the best thing to do is to take the number of crickets you intend to feed to your animal and put them in a separate container with the gut-load product like Kate mentioned above (if you're feeding a dry product put a piece of apple, orange or potato in there too for a source of water). Allow the crickets to consume the food for a several hours and then make sure to feed them to your pet within 24 hours since crickets digest their food and expel the waste after that. Also, don't feed gut-load products as a staple diet for your crickets as it will kill them if that's all they eat since it's too high in calcium content (as well as certain other minerals).

[kmichael55]

David, you are such an expert on everything! i know it's been said before but you really should write a book, the comprehensive knowledge of davidy on reptiles

[DavidY]

thanks! But that's where I learned it all from was from books and magazines...

[the_orphaned]

Haha, thanks for the input guys. Problem is, we don't have much crickets here in the Philippines for commercial consumption. Most of the ones that are being bred here are mealworms. I'll try and get a my hands on some when I get the time. Crickets are not that popular for food here, only the worms are.

Well, Turt decided that dead mealworms are easier to eat than live ones... he dragged one to the bottom of his tank and drowned it... a couple of hours later the mealworm was gone. I guess Turt decided to snack on it. I'll still try to look for crickets though.

[DavidY]

Cockroaches are supposed to be very nutritious for reptiles too. Especially the Hissing Cockroach.

[marisa]

Don't feed mealworms frequently and don't feed a lot when you do. They're calcium vacuums (have a really bad calcium/phosphorus ratio) and they're not that nutritious.

Have you tried an earthworm/pieces of earthworm? They're good as part of the overall diet.