The Puffer Forum

Willie has decided he does not always like shrimp(krill) and I thought worms would be good. Meal worms,earth worms any good?

earth worms are common

actually have you tried normal "people" shrimp from the supermarket, my puffs all love it.

I dont know if he is large enough for them. About 4-5" w/tail

If so, just cut them into smaller sized pieces, leaving the shell on. Snails are obviously among the top picks. I've had great success with gutloaded ghost shrimp, live crayfish, crab's legs.

Earthworms are good protein but lack crunch. Wild-caught worms may be host to all sorts of pesticides and insecticides, so I would avoid feeding those. If memory serves, Meal worms are quite fatty and do not fit the low-fat, high-protein bill for staple food.

I will have to go check out some cray and crab legs. As in live cray just from a bait shop or?

I feed my 1" GSPs people shrimp. I just rip of a piece and let them rip at it.

Clams, mussels...they're all good, if you're going to the fishmonger.
Just be sure and freeze them for 48 hours at least, to kill any pathogens.
Pami.

Mealworms are usually going to be between 5% and 8% fat. That is much higher than say krill or prawns but well within a resonable level. I wouldn't feed your fahaka just mealworms but the chitlin in thier shell provides a good way to wear teeth down with messing around with raising snails.

Mealworms are in no way a substute for snails, sorry. They are a valid treat meal, but incissor wear does not compare.

What about Superworms? They are bigger than mealworms, and have harder shells. But I know they are fat as well and should be used only as treats.

My fahaka loves earthworms. I either buy them from my LFS (expensive) or bait shop (cheaper).

"Superworms" are hormone city. I have a distrust of such manipulated critters as feeders for my livestock.

Superworms actually have much softer shells than mealworms. A mealworm is about 30% chitlin.

RTR,
many people also use "superworm" to refer to Zophobas Morio, they shouldn't have any hormones in them. Also, I find that mealworms work extremley well to wear teeth, were you using adult Tenebrio molitor or something else?




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I wanted to try the "superworms" back when I had the mbu and Fahakas going as another treat food, so contacted the supplier who did not specify what the particular bug was, but did specify that that their diet was hormoned. NIMFT.

IME with both SAPs and F-8s, mealworms were of little to no use for incissor wear compared to snails. Again, NIMFT.