Changing up the diet: Supers?

[BlueMorpho]

My dragons (Striker 3yrs and Eri 2.5yrs) haven't had insects as a staple in about a year. They've been eating lots and lots of greens and RepCal pellets daily and calcium/vitamin supplements three times/week (on greens or mixed into butternut squash baby food). In addition, I've been occasionally giving them Carnivore Care mixed with the baby food.
They're just coming out of brumation, and picking up appetite and activity again.
I'm almost out of the last jar of pellets I bought, and wanting to start their new year a little differently.

Until now, my roommate has been against the idea of having bugs in the house, but has slowly been desensitized by my sneaking in the odd squirmy hornworm/butterworm treat.
I've just ordered some Phoenix worms (they'll come Tuesday, so excited to see the reaction!!), but due to the price, I'm not sure I can afford them as more than a treat. I can't find silkworms locally, either, and they're even pricier than Phoenix!
I'm not keen on going back to crix; despite that I never had a problem with the smell, I really don't feel like cleaning the Kritter Keeper every couple days anymore, and the noise/worry of escape (also never too bothersome to me, since they were kept in a keeper stored inside the large feeding bin and I got used to the sound) has my roommate in adamant opposition to them.
I'm considering using superworms as a staple bug, but see so many conflicting views!!

I've looked at nutritional analysis, and my only current concerns are high fat and low calhos.

For those who use supers as staples, I have a few questions:

-Would I have to calci dust/spray each time I serve them, or would continuing with my vits/cal 3/wk routine suffice? (I choose collards, dandelions, escarole, and mustard as staple greens with varied fruits and other veggies, give butternut squash weekly, and have recently found they LOVE prickly pear, all high cal)

-What would an appropriate (approximate) number of squirmies be per day? (Adult dragons currently fed twice/day: pellets & greens AM, greens/babyfood PM)

-Does the high fat content (as compared to crix, silkies, and Phoenix/Repti-worms or pellets/beardie bites) pose a risk to developing gout, fatty liver, or other health issues?

-Are there any tips you'd offer for keeping the worms as healthy and nutritional as possible?

-Links to additional nutrition guides. I love the Beautiful Dragons one, but Wonder if there are any other similarly trusted and thorough resources

-Any other thoughts?

Thank you so much!!
~Julie, Striker, and Eri~

 

[luigismom]

I ordered a 1000 superworms for my girl in the summer and was feeding her between 5-8 on a daily basis. She would have been just over a year old when I made the switch over to superworms. Prior to that I had her mostly on crickets (but I found that she was getting too many parasites). She started looking a bit 'rotund' before xmas so I cut her back to about 1-3 superworms a day. I only feed her the freshly shed ones so she doesn't consume the chitin. I keep them in a large tupperware bin (filled with organic dirt) and feed them the scraps of my girls organic salad. If she doesn't eat it it gets thrown in the bin (mostly butternut squash and dandelion greens). I keep my superworms in dirt even though some recommend other types of bedding. Mine have thrived and are very low maintenance. I just spray down their bin with water whenever it looks dry (I mix my water with my trace minerals). I don't supplement her feeders with any calcium/vitamins. My girl eats lots of fresh salad every day and gets bee pollen a few times a week to make up for any deficiencies.

 

[Taterbug]

Both my guys got picky when I started giving them supers. I worry about the fat content mostly - i prefer to keep them a smaller part of the diet for the most part.

Have they been having feeding problems? Just curious about the babyfood and carnivore care. Or is it just little amounts?

You can rear your own silkworms if you find a place that sells the eggs + chow. They take about a month to get to the size for an adult dragon.

I dust almost all the insects I offer (he doesn't eat many) with Repashy calcium plus. I don't usually dust salads, but even the high calcium staples can have a wide rage of Ca so I wouldn't rely on them to balance the negative ratio from many insects.

I kept my supers on oats and grain bedding with squash and veggies, as long as they have moisture and good food to eat this is the typical way to keep them. I just started them in a soil based tub this past week. I didn't like the idea that the main portion of their diet was grains.

This is a guide I have been working on for about a year. It is data from the USDA food database and other information (oxalates) from publications. I havnt got it quite user friendly yet so let me know if things don't work about it. I've not got live food incorporated yet either. https://sites.google.com/site/thelizardmadness/interactive-food-guide

 

[BlueMorpho]

Thank you both for your responses!

I'd definitely love to know more about the soil bins; I like that idea so much better than oatmeal for nutrition!! I've heard that supers are very sensitive to moisture, though; does that seem to cause any problems? I have one of the large size Kritter Keepers I was planning to use as a worm bin, lots of ventilation!

Tater, no feeding problems, Deb gave me some CC last year as a supplement when I couldn't give them crix anymore due to my living situation.
I've been sprinkling about the same amount as I use cal/vit powder, about 1/16tsp, into a couple Tbs of butternut squash baby food as a treat every few weeks or so, and they both absolutely love it. I haven't really worried about the lack of regular bugs because they take the pellets without a problem and are generally good about eating their salads (brumation they cut back a lot and lost some weight, but they're eating normally again).

Unfortunately I don't have space/time to do any bug breeding, and my roommate would go ballistic if I did, lol.

Thanks for the link, Tater, I'll check it out a bit later and let you know what I think, thank you for putting time and effort into creating it!!

 

[BlueMorpho]

Tater, your guide is awesome!!
It's easy to read, and I love that you have it separated by food type. You've put a lot of work into it, and it's impressive that you've listed some of the vitamin content, too! Well done!!

I've found a few charts for live food, but still can't find a definitive analysis of hornworms.
Also been having trouble finding the Ca for some feeders, as they list them like this:
Butterworms:
Cal mg/kg 125
phos mg/kg 2,250
or
2.10 (no clue what that's supposed to mean)

as well as mg/100g or mg/kcal

My math skills aren't that awesome... lol

 

[Taterbug]

If you dig around for studies there are some for most bugs, but many conflict. They can vary a lot based on age, diet and more so it's not that they are all "wrong" either. Hornworms (manduca sexta) are well studied and there are several papers about the effect of diet on them. They increase in fat a great deal during their final instar before pupating. Also, most insects have a negative ca ratio by nature, it's good to be wary of claims otherwise. Soldier fly larvae have an unusal (for common feeders anyway) biology that incorporates calcium into their exoskeletons.

The butterworms is one of the ones that got me started on my nutriton kick, that and the oxalate content. Some of those units just don't make much sense and can be misleading, additionally some of the other data is questionable as well so I wonder about the "high calcium" claims. This study has black soldier fly larvae and butterworms. I don't have the links to the hornworms ones right now. http://www.timberlinefisheries.com/v/vspfiles/assets/images/finke_2012_complete%20nutrient%20content%20of%20four%20species%20of%20feeder%20insects.pdf

Thanks for the compliments. There is another version as well with much more detail of vitamins/minerals. If you load the interactive guide there is a button on the bottom right to open it and navigate the different tabs. But like I said, still working on making it user friendly.