Are Horn Worms Poisonous?

[KarenInCA]

The only downside to large hornworms is the mess left over after your beardie chows down. It's like feeding a baby a bowl of spaghetti. There is sauce all over but a happy baby once you wipe it all off of him/her :lol: . As for staple, I'm sure you could but that's a very expensive staple. I use dubias as staple since I breed them and add in silkworms, hornworms, butterworms usually every other week to spice it up. Might try superworms in the rotation too since Harley is large enough for them.

What mess are you referring to? When we feed Rin hornworms, I feed them to him on a glass plate, and anything gooey that spews onto the plate is eyeballed once, then he licks the plate clean. :roll: yum.

 

[Sauzo]

Maybe I need to start using a plate. Harley loves to pick worms off my fingers and she just makes a mess especially of the 3 inch hornworms.

 

[lindasgonebuggie]

 

[jarich]

Can these horn worms be a staple? And would I still need to dust them with calcium? Currently my 4 month old babies eat medium phoenix worms which they love but ive been wanting to try something else for variety.

Its best not to think of feeding in terms of 'staples' but rather offer as much variety as you can. Phoenix worms are great, but add in hornworms, crickets, roaches, nightcrawlers, superworms, etc.

Hornworms do need to be dusted with calcium, yes. They are also fairly high in fat, so should be fed in rotation with other feeder inverts.

 

[Sauzo]

I would probably not use hornworms as a staple. If you are looking for something as a staple, I would use dubia roaches as they are easy to breed and once you get a colony going, you got more or less free feeders for life and they are pretty good as a feeder. Of course if cash wasn't a factor, I would use silkworms as a staple since they are very good but the flipside is they are kind of spendy. I personally have a dubia colony of about 5000+ and just sell extras and use the cash to supplement Harley's diet with silkworms, hornworms and butterworms. Might try superworms but will never use crickets since they can carry parasites like pinworms and are just overall a pita.

 

[jarich]

Yes, they carry cricket pinworms, not pinworms that infect dragons. Nematodes are usually quite host specific, and generally come from two main families, those that infect vertebrates and those that infect invertebrates. So your dragon has a better chance of getting pinworms from you than it does from crickets

 

[pogismom]

I didn't know that pinworms were host specific. A lot if tge threads say it can be feom crickets when beardies get them.!So if a beardie gets pinwormss what is the source they get it from?

Thanks!

 

[pogismom]

"Hornworms do need to be dusted with calcium, yes. They are also fairly high in fat, so should be fed in rotation with other feeder inverts."

I didn't know either that Hornworms were high in fat.... I had looked at a nutrition chart from The Worm Lady website that said they had a 3.07% fat content. Is that high? How does that compare to wax worms?
Thanks!

 

[lindasgonebuggie]

 

[jarich]

I didn't know that pinworms were host specific. A lot if tge threads say it can be feom crickets when beardies get them.!So if a beardie gets pinwormss what is the source they get it from?

Thanks!

Other lizards.

 

[jarich]

"Hornworms do need to be dusted with calcium, yes. They are also fairly high in fat, so should be fed in rotation with other feeder inverts."

I didn't know either that Hornworms were high in fat.... I had looked at a nutrition chart from The Worm Lady website that said they had a 3.07% fat content. Is that high? How does that compare to wax worms?
Thanks!

No, but it's not accurate either. The actual fat content is closer to 18-22%. (Finke, 2004) Think about it. You're talking about a worm that grows at a monumental rate on what is largely a diet of starch (sugars). Does it make any sense that they would have only a 3% fat content?

 

[Taterbug]

It's also worth keeping in mind that as they develop the nutrition profile of bugs change. A little bitty hornworm may indeed be low fat - but a pupating one needs fats to get thru metamorphosis and as moths they rely of fat stores as fuel for their flight muscles.

Anything that doesn't need to eat for extended periods of time (butterworms, waxworms) is also probably living off fat.

 

[pogismom]

Thank you! Very insightful. Guess that's why they like them so much. Like Gummi Worms for reptiles!

 

[Sauzo]

What about silkworms? They have to pupate as well yet people say they are the best feeders out there. And as for food, they pretty much eat the same formulated chow as hornworms unless you feed them mulberry leaves which most people don't unless you have access to a mulberry tree. Not mention also about phoenix worms(BSFL) which a lot also consider as a very good feeder.

 

[Taterbug]

What about silkworms? They have to pupate as well yet people say they are the best feeders out there. And as for food, they pretty much eat the same formulated chow as hornworms unless you feed them mulberry leaves which most people don't unless you have access to a mulberry tree. Not mention also about phoenix worms(BSFL) which a lot also consider as a very good feeder.

I've been wondering about silks as well - I'm not certain on those but data I've found usually have seen low fat numbers. Not sure the biology behind it though. Perhaps it is related to their low activity levels as adults and short lifespan? Again, it doesn't seem like there is much data that discriminates the age/instar of insects... As for the chow - the hornworm chow I've experienced is not the same as the silkworm chow. Smell, texture and consistency were way different. Hornworms are much less picky than silks and there are a few studies about altering the starch/fat/water content of their food and the effect on the moths. Still a bit over my head though.

BSFL are still larvae, and have more fat than adult insects. Something in the range of 15-20% I think? Compared to a cricket's 3-10%. They do have remarkable high calcium for a commercial insect, as well as other nutrient benefits. Interestingly as adult flies they are back to "normal" low levels of calcium.

The ones IMO that are "poor" feeders for regular use are wax and butter worms - but there is a very small data set of butters. They both score rather low on the various micronutrient profiles to have such high fat/calories - whereas some of the other bugs like the soldier fly larvae being a bit more to the table.

Of course, age, food source, gut contents, and way more effect the actual measurements so it's hard to ever truly be certain. Without good dietary guidelines for our reptiles it's hard to judge what's too much either :/ it's frustrating.

Dr. Finke's work it pretty detailed and he is actually quite approachable about it