Feeding insects to your Reptiles and Amphibians
A guide to commonly available food for feeding to reptiles and amphibians
By Don petty. Herpetoculturist, Past President of the Fairbanks Herpetocultural Society, Former president of the Las Vegas Aquarium Club. /pet shop owner.
During the time that I have spent keeping and breeding reptiles and amphibians there have been many drastic and important changes made with regards to feeding and keeping exotic pets.
When I was a young boy growing up in the deserts of Nevada, my brother and I would collect many of the local herp species that we could find in our deserts. we would go to the local pet shops and inquire about what these creature might eat in captivity. Many times the answer was the same and most times within a few months our new pets were getting the burial service because they starved to death. In the seventies, it was assumed that most insect eating reptiles and amphibians could survive on a diet of hard shelled meal worms and for snakes a live fat mouse was offered.
In the nineties we have learned a few tricks that can help your herp species live long full lives and often times reproduce in captivity thus reducing the strain that man has imposed on dwindling wild endangered populations.
For snakes:
I have found the argument is the same with a frozen twist.
Live V.S. Frozen . Many experienced herpetoculturists
(That's what they call persons who keep reptiles and amphibians)
only offer furry food items that their snakes eat in FROZEN form thawed out of course. The reasons are simple, first, freezing mice, rabbits etc., reduces the chances of introducing parasites, mites, lice etc,. Second many food items, such as rats may seriously injure snakes as the rats bite and rabbits can kick a snake to death. Freezing eliminates this problem, further, once frozen the hobbyist can then inject with a needle any needed medications or vitamins that may need to be administered to the snake. Obviously , Freezing has many benefits, including the fact that you can keep many food items in the freezer thus eliminating the stink common to cages of rodents. The disadvantage is that some vitamin contents may become absent from frozen items after time. This lack of vitamin content can be overcome by not allowing items to remain unused for years and by re injecting vitamins into frozen rodents. If you are feeding snakes that consume fishes, you should stick with live feeder fishes unless you have no access to bait or pet shops, as fish become highly de vitimized and become useless to reptiles and amphibians after prolonged freezing.
For lizards:
Thank goodness for cricket farms ! I am always reminded of how cool America is when I think of a business that raises crickets for use as bait and for feeding our pets. You can sell anything in America ! Crickets have become the staple for feeding captive herps. Crickets are soft bodied, easy to keep and feed to herps and easy to vitamize.
How do you vitamize a cricket you ask ? You can vitamize crickets and other bugs in two main ways and maybe many more.
First, feed your food items properly, I like to provide a fresh dish of clean water with a sponge it for my crickets to drink from and I provide a dish of flaked tropical fish food with a good protein base as well as some powdered vitamins especially vitamin D3 or a good comerical cricket diet (available at most pet shops). The crickets and other bugs eat this and then when your herps eat them they get the benefit of the vitamins that are inside the bugs gut. If you can only keep a few crickets around at a time or do not have room to keep a supply of crickets for feeding your herps then you can use the “Shake and serve” method, get a large zip lock baggie and put a few pinches of vitamins into it then put your crickets or bugs into the bag and shake. The result of this shaking will coat the insects with vitamins and then your herps will get a vitamized treat.
This method also works for mealworms. Speaking of Mealworms, there are several species offered to consumers, the small type that are kept in the refrigerator and the larger King type meal worms. Mealworms are the larval stage of a beetle. Mealworms are hard shelled and harder to digest, and are lacking in vitamin D3.
So why use them at all you ask ? Well, meal worms provide variety and they provide a good backup in times when crickets might become scarce, like the hottest part of summer and the coldest part of winter.
Collecting your own bugs can be another way of providing variety but remember to not collect bugs from gardens that may have pesticides and around parking lots as oil and antifreeze may not bother the hard shells of bugs but may kill your pets. It is very important to understand what your specimen would have consumed in the wild. The reason I mention this is because I always collected Horned “Toad” lizards in the desert and they always died, today most species of horney toads are rare and endangered. A few years ago scientists realized that the Horned lizards ate copious amounts of red ants in the wild. It is now known that the ants are high in Formic acid and the Horned lizards need it help them digest food and without the ants the horned lizards die. As an adult it is sad to me that I helped cause the demise of a species because of ignurance. Please, if you are planning to purchase a reptile or amphibian take the time to read a book about it’s needs PRIOR to purchasing it.
Feeding Amphibians:
For insect feeding species such as tree frogs and small toads I suggest you use a glass feeding station that is centrally located in the cage that the frogs and toads can get in and out of but that trap the insects within. Frogs and toads are lunge feeders and in a cage they can get injured by swallowing a mouth full of dirt or gravel or by hitting the side or top of the cage. make sure that the frogs can climb in and out of the bowl safely and do not get trapped themselves.
Remember to vitamize the insects that you are offering.
For feeding large toads and predacious frogs, I suggest frozen mice and pink mice. (Thawed out first) I have also had good luck with feeding a diet of commercial moist cat food or monkey biscuits that are soaked in vitamins.
Why vitamins and Vitalight:
Briefly, without writing a book on just this subject, it is a known fact that most diurnal (coming out during the day) reptiles do not assimilate (use/produce) any calcium under artificial light bulbs and thus become rubber jawed and die. This condition is most commonly seen in Iguanas. The way to avoid this is to use full spectrum bulbs like the Vitalite by Duro test corporation.
The vitalite provides near U.V. b and a. in amounts that help reptiles produce and use Calcium and Phosporious, which we know build strong bones and teeth. :O)
Feeding green Iguanas:
There are many books and disagreements on this subject and I direct the reader to the book called ; The Proper Care and keeping of Green Iguanas by Phillipe de Vosjoli, from the American federation of Herpetoculturists., Available from any good Pet shop.
Also of interest are the reptile magazines that always have articles on feeding Iguanas.
