Getting BD to take calcium

[Little D]

Have a question with regards to calcium because I have a really hard time getting my BD to eat anything with calcium on it. As soon as he sees the powder, he won't touch anything. Liquid Calcium is a hard thing to come by in my area.

So I was wondering, if I put the calcium powder in the food I feed my roaches, once my BD eats the roaches will he still get the benefits from the calcium intake or will that not work? I always have a separate, smaller container that we always keep about 15 roaches in it for feeding purposes. These are kept separate from the other 1000's of roaches we have. So I thought I could keep a food/calcium mixture in with those 15 roaches and they would eat it, which in turn my BD would eat them AND the calcium........
I also have a heck of a time getting him to eat many greens and he's at an age that he should be eating more greens then feeders.

So, will doing that with the calcium still provide my BD with the calcium that he needs??

Thanks

 

[diamc]

He actually needs to ingest the calcium directly in order for it to be beneficial. If he notices the white powder on his feeders or greens & won't take it, you can mix a small pinch in some water or diluted 100% (no sugar added) juice, mix 1 part juice to 3 parts water, can use apple, grape, cherry or cranberry.

What greens have you been offering him?

 

[Little D]

He actually needs to ingest the calcium directly in order for it to be beneficial. If he notices the white powder on his feeders or greens & won't take it, you can mix a small pinch in some water or diluted 100% (no sugar added) juice, mix 1 part juice to 3 parts water, can use apple, grape, cherry or cranberry.

What greens have you been offering him?

Thanks for the reply diamc. If I mix the calcium powder with water or juice, how do I get him to take that?

As for the greens, we've tried pretty much every kind that's "green" on the nutritional list, that we're able to find in our area. I can get him to take a few bites of dandelion greens but I don't think it's near as much as he should be eating. After that, when I try to give him some he just closes his eyes........lol

 

[Soulwind]

I have the same issue with Mellow.

She simply will not eat any bugs that have been dusted.

She sees a dusted bug, she ignores it. Wipe the dust off enough
so that it's nice and dark again and she'll chase it down and gobble.

So for her, I just feed her undusted and give her a liquid supplement
to make up for it.

I take a small amount of unsweetened apple juice, add a tiny pinch of
calcium powder and a tiny pinch of vitamin powder (same stuff I dust with),
mix it up and suck it into a pet syringe.

Drip a drop or two on her nose and she grabs the syringe and sucks down the
rest (with me slowly pushing in the plunger of course). She really does seem
to like the apple juice mixture and never fights me or refuses it.

I make sure she gets a few cc's every other day. It's not the best solution to
the problem, but it's the only thing I've found that seems to work for her.

 

[Little D]

Does anyone have any tips or tricks that I could use to get him eating his greens? Because if I understand it right, at his age, without the greens and only eating feeders, they can't break down the calcium, so they end up in a calcium deficiency state.

I have some Critical Care but that stuff must taste/smell nasty because he absolutely hates it and won't touch anything that has it on it

 

[Taterbug]

You can gutload crickets with calcium in their feed and have them come out with a positive Ca ratio. It takes a certain percentage of the feed to be calcium carbonate and to have a certain consistency. This is how many zoos and large collections help manage calcium supplementing. Not sure about roaches though - the theory holds but not sure what the final ratio is. There are some commercial feeds that work well on crickets.

Regardless of what is eaten, you want a Ca ration of 2:1 - this is ideal to keep his systems running smoothly and not draw calcium out of the bones. He doesn't need the greens to process the calcium, but it should be a size able part of the diet eventually.

Have you tried putting the insects into the salad so he has to pick them out, and maybe eat salad by accident? I've found kale and spring mix to be well received. Curly kale is a decent calcium source, but it's good to mix it up with higher calcium greens like turnip or collard. Spring mix contains spinach and chard usually, so I don't offer it too frequently. Also, winter squash with its bright color can be enticing too.

Which powder are you using? Maybe another brand would be more palatable to him.