Hatchlings Molt and Grow Faster on BSFL Staple Diet

[springyfc]

Some breeders have noticed that bearded hatchlings grew faster and molted little earlier if they were fed black soldier fly larvae (BSFL), and we have just finished an experiment to quantify how much more can they grow if use BSFL as the staple diet. Compared to the group feeding dusted roaches, the group fed BSFL grow faster, and resulted in 35.29% more weight than the dubia group. In addition to the weight gain difference, the ones on the BSFL diet molted 2 days faster on average. It should be noted that the BSFL were not supplemented and were given equal amount compare to the other group, however, the palatability bias might cause unequal mass intake by the hatchlings, which attributed to the growth difference. This, indeed, represents a real world situation that reptiles are often fed in an ad lib manner.

The study demonstrated that BSFL could provide sufficient protein and calcium to support the growth of the STUDIED bearded dragons, without any additional supplement.

If you want to learn the detailed information, here is the original post:
http://www.symtonbsf.com/blog/bearded-dragon-hatchlings-grow-faster-when-fed-bsfl-as-staple-diet

Something the post didn't mention, this is a controlled study, and there were 6 dragons total, 3 dragons each group. To offset the genetic variation, all the dragons are from the same parent. The individual variation is small as in the end of the 8th week, the standard deviation of weights were only 0.58g in the dubia group and 1.53g in the BSFL group, when the mean difference was 4.00g. Statistically (ONE-Way ANOVA, p<0.05) their weights were different between groups, and the effect should be accounted to the feeder insects, not genetic variations of the dragons. Although we only used 3 replicates in this study, which is the minimal number for experiment replicate in a scientific manner, because this study had only one variable, it generates enough statistic power to make an inference. For this particular study, because there were extremely small variations between individuals, we were 95% confident about the result, statistically.

The husbandry for the dragons is the same for both groups. The insect mass was provided the same amount, however, there could be bias due to palatability. The calcium content indeed is not equal, nor for the Ca ratio, because this is a major point we were trying to hit on--to compare the most common practice with BSFL. In one study done by Saint Louis Zoo, they found that the Ca content in supplemented cricket is much higher than in the BSFL, causing an imbalance of Ca (5.3:1), versus in the BSFL is 2.5:1. The off-chart Ca content could block the P absorption, and this is why the dragons in our study can absorb better nutrient from the BSFL, resulting in greater weight gain per insect mass, and molt two days faster. Also to point out that during the 8-week span all the dragons molted twice, and the results were consistent.

Of course there were still questions remained unanswered, and we will continue work on it to do more studies like this to answer questions.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Well I guess that's interesting.

Question if comparing in proper scientific way.

ie
Sample size in both cases needs to be shown.

Equal masses of insect protein (based on weights of feeders given each day in each group) ?

How can you be sure of the amount of dietary calcium (if only dusted wrt the roaches) ?

Same UV lighting ?

Same temperatures ?

Same day / night cycles ?

Were the hatchlings all separated and feed individually ?

Genetic effects due to parentage ?

 

[springyfc]

Well I guess that's interesting.

Question if comparing in proper scientific way.

ie
Sample size in both cases needs to be shown.

Equal masses of insect protein (based on weights of feeders given each day in each group) ?

How can you be sure of the amount of dietary calcium (if only dusted wrt the roaches) ?

Same UV lighting ?

Same temperatures ?

Same day / night cycles ?

Were the hatchlings all separated and feed individually ?

Genetic effects due to parentage ?

Very Good questions! If you want to learn the detailed information, here is the original post:
http://www.symtonbsf.com/blog/bearded-dragon-hatchlings-grow-faster-when-fed-bsfl-as-staple-diet

Something the post didn't mention, this is a controlled study, and there were 6 dragons total, 3 dragons each group. To offset the genetic variation, all the dragons are from the same parent. The individual variation is small as in the end of the 8th week, the standard deviation of weights were only 0.58g in the dubia group and 1.53g in the BSFL group, when the mean difference was 4.00g. Statistically (ONE-Way ANOVA, p<0.05) their weights were different between groups, and the effect should be accounted to the feeder insects, not genetic variations of the dragons.

The husbandry for the dragons is the same for both groups. The insect mass was provided the same amount, however, there could be bias due to palatability. The calcium content indeed is not equal, nor for the Ca ratio, because this is a major point we were trying to hit on--to compare the most common practice with BSFL. In one study done by Saint Louis Zoo, they found that the Ca content in supplemented cricket is much higher than in the BSFL, causing an imbalance of Ca (5.3:1), versus in the BSFL is 2.5:1. The off-chart Ca content could block the P absorption, and this is why the dragons in our study can absorb better nutrient from the BSFL, resulting in greater weight gain per insect mass, and molt two days faster. Also to point out that during the 8-week span all the dragons molted twice, and the results were consistent.

Of course there were still questions remained unanswered, and we will continue work on it to do more studies like this to answer questions. And we respectfully ask you if you would like to help, seems you have some scientific background.

Thank you.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Hardly a proper scientific study , extremely small sample sizes , data likely highly unreliable.

 

[springyfc]

Hardly a proper scientific study, extremely small sample sizes, data likely highly unreliable.

That's a very good point, small sample size is a weakness in this study, but it's the best we can do due to the available funding at the time. We have added an explanation for the sample size issue to the post, you can read it if you were interested in our logic behind the design.

Besides the sample size, do you have any other comment or suggestion? Pending on the agreement on this result, this study is indeed the first one to demonstrate in a scientific manner, and as scientists, we will be more than happy to help the community to solve other myths or misleading information.

So again we ask if you would like to join us to generate valuable information for the community.

 

[Taterbug]

This is a topic I have a great deal of interest in so this will be a bit long winded and stray a bit from the premise of the study, apologies in advance.

Most of my response is geared towards the claims below rather than the actuall finding of the feeding trial.

Do not need to dust your other feeder insects when this is the staple diet
No need to dust any supplement when provided as staple diet

provide the proper UV lamp and feed them black soldier fly larvae, so you don't need to worry about dusting anymore.

We have just finished an experiment with The Dragon Den, testing how does beardie handle black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as staple diet

I worry about using these statement when there isn't also a strong body of supporting evidence. Not to say there isn't, but this is not what the study directly finds and there is not referenced literature for such claims. I know BSFL based feeds are studied as options for fish and poultry among others, so that information might be out there and just isn't presented as one would expect with a peer reviewed study.

I understand the scope of the study was to show effect on growth rate of hatchlings fed BSFL, however once information hits the community the 'telephone game' starts to go into effect and it often ends up misconstrued or inappropriately extrapolated. I have no issues at all with BSFL and I think they make a great addition to the diet. The more information that we have about feeders and feeding trials like this the better.

So. Some questions/thoughts I have....

Of course, compared to the group feeding dusted roaches, the group fed BSFL grow faster. In addition to the weight gain difference, the ones on the BSFL diet molted 2 days faster on average.

Is growth rate and faster molting directly correlated with long term health? 'Power feeding' is a technique used for snakes to boost their growth quickly from hatchling to breeding weight, but can have negative effects on their health as adults. Since this study only looks at a very short time (8 weeks) is it established that fast growth is in fact healthy for these lizards?

Black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) have recently been accepted as the best staple feeder insect for many reptiles, because of their naturally high calcium content.

Its true that they have high calcium content, but under what context are the 'accepted as the best staple feeder?' Is this from published veterinary/herpetological literature, zoos or the reptile industry at large? Again relating to long term fitness/health. Some literature suggests that the hardened cuticle of insect exoskeletons is beneficial for dental health in bearded dragons. What if any anticipated long term effects are there of soft bodied feeder insects as a primary staple?

However, studies indicate that the nutritional value of BSFL is greatly influenced by rearing practices and diet

This is true for many insects - studies also show that other common feeder insects (crickets, mealworms, silkworms) can be gutloaded to have appropriate Ca ratios by diet. Different life stages of insects also have different nutritional values. Many larval insects increase in fat as they age and get closer to pupating, for example. Are larger BSFL that would be the primary feed for older lizards still nutritionally sound? How do their compare nutritionally to the larvae fed to hatchlings?

and there are no data to demonstrate how or why BSFL are the best feeder insects.

Then how can they be accepted as the best when there is no data?

Currently, dubia roaches have been catching a lot of attention for the higher nutritional values than crickets, superworms and mealworms, and are the most popular feeder insects used among reptile breeders in the US.

Again, this is 'common knowledge' in the hobby community, but there is very little published nutritional information about B. Dubia (I can think of maybe one or two studies). Nutritional adequacy needs to be considered on a deeper level than just crude analysis as some insects look fine this way but can be quite deficient in micro-nutrients.

The calcium content indeed is not equal, nor for the Ca ratio, because this is a major point we tried to hit--to compare the most common practice with feeding BSFL. In one study done by Saint Louis Zoo, they found that the Ca content in supplemented cricket is much higher than in the BSFL, causing an imbalance of Ca (5.3:1), versus in the BSFL is 2.5:1.

Were the insects evaluated for calcium content or the effect of the supplements used? You mention that the BSFL were fed according to a proprietary diet and rearing method; what about the roaches? Were they gutloaded, if so on what? A couple concerns I would have with this are 1) crickets are not nutritionally the same as B. dubia 2) the effect of dusting is probably different due to body shape/texture 3) are the same supplements used with the same technique as the St. Louis Zoo study? While this does reflect a 'real world' sort of situation that makes sence for the feeding trial, the claims seem more speculative than anything. Seems like evaluating (at least mathematically) what the 'expected' Ca ratio would be more appropriate.

The off-chart Ca content could block the P absorption, and this is why the dragons in our study can absorb better nutrient from the BSFL, resulting in greater weight gain per insect mass, and molt two days faster.

Again, this seems speculative... Assuming the Ca coloration with crickets is accurate; what specific nutrients are influenced by this? Are those nutrients directly linked to health and growth rate?

The insect mass was provided equal amount, however, there could be bias due to palatability.

Was feed intake recorded? Was feed intake equivalent between the different groups?

Along with the insects, the dragons were provided adequate vegetables to make the diet balanced, such as kale, collards, mustard, butternut squash, and zucchini

Was the supplementary feed uptake of the two groups recorded? Was one group more likely to be eating their vegetables?

The study demonstrated that our BSFL could provide sufficient protein and calcium for faster growth of bearded dragons, without any additional supplement.

I feel like this statement is the only one that is truly supported buy the findings of the trial. This is obviously beyond the scope of the trial but... Long term, assuming calcium is adequate, I would be concerned about not including vitamin/mineral supplements. Can a diet of unsupplemented BSFL, other un-supplemented insects and produce provide a long term nutritionally adequate diet?

Again, I do find the results of the feeding trial interesting and with the information given I don't necessarily doubt the findings that the BSFL group grew faster than the roach group. I do however find that the presentation and lack of supporting information does make a lot of the other claims seem more extrapolated or speculative than evidence based.

 

[springyfc]

This is a topic I have a great deal of interest in so this will be a bit long winded and stray a bit from the premise of the study, apologies in advance.

Do not need to dust your other feeder insects when this is the staple diet
No need to dust any supplement when provided as staple diet

provide the proper UV lamp and feed them black soldier fly larvae, so you don't need to worry about dusting anymore.

We have just finished an experiment with The Dragon Den, testing how does beardie handle black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as staple diet

Thank you very much for the stress points! First let me say that most of your questions are very valuable, and after writing this reply here I can improve the post in many ways. In short, all the statements made prior to this study were either based on personal experiment or business survey result, and not all of them have been tested systematically, if any were actually been tested. The initiative to start this experiment was indeed trying to test if any of those statements were true, and if so or not, in what sense.

Before we entered the community, there were already few BSFL businesses existed on the market, and lots claims were taken for granted and assumed true, and were continuously used. Personally, I have kept 5 dragons in the past 5 years--3 were reared from hatchlings, one was rescued as juvenile, and one was purchased as adult. All of them were fed our BSFL as staple diet ever since they were brought in, and had never eaten Ca/Vitamin supplement ever since. They eat all sort of insects occasionally, and only vegetables were changing for the most of the times. The hatchlings were now grown-ups healthy eating, and two of them were given away last year. The rescue came in as missing toes during a fight, and I brought her in to see if BSFL could support limbs regrowth and it did, even though the toes were not as good as the original ones. The adult I purchased came in as a big girl, and I was even suspecting it was little obese as she did not like to move, and it lost weight at my house because for a long time she does not eat BSFL, only eating crickets. Eventually she switched to BSFL diet as well, and had become normal weighted and more active.

Above were my personal experience with dragons on BSFL staple diet. At the mean time, we work with 200+ reptile breeders and thousands of reptile keepers in the US, and we were fed back a lot information corresponding to the phenomenon we observed. For example, some breeders only bought BSFL from us when the females were developing eggs, and BSFL were provided as the sole calcium and protein source, and the babies successfully hatched from those eggs; some breeders bought our BSFL as a supplement of Ca, and provided along with other insects such as dubia or superworms, just to get rid of powdering; resuced MBD dragons got slightly better benefiting from BSFL staple diet... Some of these practices resulted from breeder's experiments that we did not involve on higher level. The original idea of this study came from a group of breeders reported to us that they noticed babies fed BSFL grew faster than those who did not, and we found there was no data associating BSFL to dragon development. Not to mention, we also work with most of the insect big sellers in country, and we also got valuable information from there.

I am an entomologist specialized on BSF, not a reptile specialist, so when it comes to the effect on the animals, a lot of our knowledge were based on communications with customers and personal experiences, if you paid attention to our claim on a time course, it's like 1) use as staple diet to get rid of dusting 2) use as supplementing dietary intake to get rid of dusting 3) Could be used as sole insectary source of protein and Ca 4) now improve growth rate of dragon hatchlings. Every step of the claim progress was result of learning and consulting with others. What was driven us to invest more into this business was that, during the past three years there were 0 cases reported animals were hurt for feeding our BSFL as staple diet, or doing poorer than before the switch.


And get back to the critics on this study.
* Based on the consulting result from the breeders, heavier weight gain in the early stage is strongly pursuit, and its thought to be a healthy sign. Faster molting is definitely a benefit for certain morphs, such as paradox, most of which reveal the true morph after several shedding. I accepted the weight gain theory because of my background of ecology, from where I know in general (not absolute) that egg laying creatures have higher fitness in terms of fecundity. However, there is another selection force in the wild, where a larger dragons will have higher risk of being predated. Well, this threat does not exist in captive breeding situation, so heavier weight, higher fitness. Yet, does that mean they are healthier in long term? It really depends on what do you mean specifically by health.
* Based on our impressions to numerous reptile breeders, some are our customer and some aren't, BSFL is the best feeder, but because of the high price it is not the most prevalent feeder, even on the bottom of the list.
* (https://dubiaroaches.com/pages/why-choose-dubia-roaches) the dubia nutrition in this chart was generated from a lab test, it's the most reliable number so far. Crude protein and lipid are the most relevant data for animal keepers to consider, as amino acid profile , lipid acid profile or micro nutrient were the parts that's greatly affected by the diet given as well as the husbandry. There is variations between small and large larvae, but in this study the dragons were fed sizes of small-medium BSFL, not just small larvae (after 6 weeks they started getting medium size larvae as requested by the keeper) Generally BSFL have higher fat content when they get older, but because they do not require gut load, the fat level could drop down after the transportation and storage by 40%, based on a study we did back in 2013. And we hypothesize this is the reason it does not cause obesity on the animals (haven't been tested yet).
* It surprised me that there were NO peer reviewed publications written about Dubia roaches relevant to reptile feeding, so the claims were also derived from web information and our impression in the herp community. So because this information is not available, the SL zoo study of crickets was brought up as an example to explain the potential mechanisms that caused the difference. However, based on the practice description of that study, we can reasonably believe the Ca ratio of dusted dubia is close to the dusted cricket, as you said, we did try to reveal a real world situation
* Ca ratio is important because of the pathway they would be absorbed by the animals. If Ca is deficient, like in the mealworm or superworm, the animals would develop muscle- or bone-related disorder, as Ca ion is important for muscle contraction and Bone development. If Ca is too high, it would block the P absorption, and this could cause a bigger problem, as most of the P in the animal body is to form ATP, which is the energy currency biologically. Food digestion, enzym production, cell reproduction, and nutrient absorption... none of these can happen without ATP. So a balanced Ca could improve the animal's ability to utilize a lot of nutrients, if not all (for example, active absorption of minerals).

Indeed, here is a concern from me, that the P-free Calcium powder shouldn't even be on the market, as it's too easy to give the animal an off-chart Ca and make P deficient, and P is a much more expensive element than Ca. I suspect some of the disease is caused by using this product, but need to be tested empirically to make more comment on it. The ideal Ca ratio recommended by LLL reptiles is 2:1, which I found out its a general recommendation for all vertebrates, and there was no empirically studied data backed up this specifically on dragons. We can manipulate our BSFL to carry Ca ratio from 1:1 to 11:1 through natural diet formulation. Although haven't being tested on dragons, I did an study on laying hens and found that 2:1 is far from enough, so now we are manufacturing BSFL at 2.5:1 ratio, which might even increase a little bit in the future, depending on an ongoing trails testing this effect. With that said, the 2.5:1 ratio, not the optimal, seems to be better than dusted dubia, or undusted dubia (not included in the study, but I have heard dragons developed MBD if not dusted), but we can potentially improve it even more.

All in all, the only claims that we intended to make from this study are 1) dragon hatchlings molted faster 2) dragon hatchlings grew faster. All other claims based on communications or personal experiences needed to be tested in the future. Wonder if you would like to help!

I appreciate your time of reading this, and this definitely helped me improve the writing, as the ultimate goal is to submit it to a scientific journal so it can be documented, although as you can feel the current post was written for public audience, not for scientific community.

 

[kingofnobbys]

Hardly a proper scientific study, extremely small sample sizes, data likely highly unreliable.

That's a very good point, small sample size is a weakness in this study, but it's the best we can do due to the available funding at the time. We have added an explanation for the sample size issue to the post, you can read it if you were interested in our logic behind the design.

Besides the sample size, do you have any other comment or suggestion? Pending on the agreement on this result, this study is indeed the first one to demonstrate in a scientific manner, and as scientists, we will be more than happy to help the community to solve other myths or misleading information.

So again we ask if you would like to join us to generate valuable information for the community.

Suggestions

>>Increase sample size by at least 10x.

>>Ensure all participant hatchlings are fed and housed individually under identical conditions (this will ensure no dominance behaviour will influence the results) .

>>Ensure all have exactly the same access to UVA , UVB , the same temperature basking spot, same D/N schedule (I suggest 15h on / 9h off) and same temperature gradient in each of their tanks.

>>Ensure all participant hatchlings are fed exactly the same protein mass of live insects each feeding.

>> standardise the size (mass per insect) of the feeder insects used, ie try to stay with a standard size BSF maggot and similar with the alternative feeder insect, give or take 10% say wrt mass per insect.

>> standardise your gutloading (what is used , for how many days prior insect being eaten)

>> standardise the calcium dusting regime (to ensure each insect has a similar load of calcium dust adhering to it

>> test the Ca ratio (chemical assay in a testing laboratory) for your standardised gutloaded & dusted insects to ensure you know exactly what the hatchlings are getting (and Include the test reports in your report).

It would be interesting to see effects of using standardised size crickets (who are gutloaded and dusted) and standardised size silkworms (fed using chow , fed fresh black mulberry leaves ( most common variety grown , yes I know ideally they should be on white mulberry leaves but these are quite hard to find ).

Not practical for me to participate in your study as I'm based o/seas in Australia and unfortunately BSF maggots are very hard to come by here, in that none of the insect laboratories breed them for sale commercially.

 

[AHBD]

Hi there, I just have a quick question....I probably have more but just this caught my eye especially. I copy/pasted one statement that you made ....

" The rescue came in as missing toes during a fight, and I brought her in to see if BSFL could support limbs regrowth and it did, even though the toes were not as good as the original ones. "

Did you mean to say the toes grew back ? Beardies do not regenerate lost limbs, toes or tails.

And BTW, although I don't use bsfl on my dragons [ all adults ] I do beleive that they are excellent feeders and that is why they are becoming more + more popular. Dubias have the advantage though, of being easily raised and growing much larger.

 

[springyfc]

Hi there, I just have a quick question....I probably have more but just this caught my eye especially. I copy/pasted one statement that you made ....

" The rescue came in as missing toes during a fight, and I brought her in to see if BSFL could support limbs regrowth and it did, even though the toes were not as good as the original ones. "

Did you mean to say the toes grew back ? Beardies do not regenerate lost limbs, toes or tails.

And BTW, although I don't use bsfl on my dragons [ all adults ] I do beleive that they are excellent feeders and that is why they are becoming more + more popular. Dubias have the advantage though, of being easily raised and growing much larger.

Just wanted to add this note in advance, that the wounds of this dragon were not carefully examined at the time of receiving, and the descriptions were based on pure memories, except the pictures were taken this morning. There could be a chance that the toe's bone were not completely removed and only the meat and nails were regenerated.

My memory was, three of the toes were bitten out and were much shorter than they are right now. So the below information is for discussion.

I wish I could find the picture before the regeneration, but I don't recall I have taken any, neither the previous owner... But you can see what happened here

When we got her, her left front hand was blur--there was a heavy bite on the palm, and a clean cut that got her last three toes, you can still see the fractures from the picture. The bite on her hand was very deep, almost got her hands off, and she was suspending the entire arm most of the time. Compare to the palm wound, the missing toes was a minor issue, as I have seen a lot dragons missing them and still able to prey. So I was hoping to she could recover the broken hand. It definitely took a while but I couldn't remember how long, I noticed the regrowth of the toes--like in the picture, middle two toes after the fracture were indeed regenerated, but the last toe were just heal and did not grow out. Also to point out, the nails on the regenerated toes were not able to complete the growth (I don't cut their nails), and I notice the regenerated toes cannot bear weights, so they were no functional, and little retarded. Luckily, the palm now is able to bear weights and she can walk and run.

Well the reason of the regeneration could be multiple, and shouldn't be accounted just by the diet. If I have time I will write another thread to discuss this. I was not on purposely doing it as an experiment, so nothing was recorded, and it will take a lot of reminding for me to write a post that I am not absolutely sure what I write about....

 

[Taterbug]

Thank you for your thoughtful response! I'll have more to say later when I am at my computer. I also have some references I'd like to pass on that may be of interest.

I think there is a fair amount that needs to be reconsidered and recorded to submit this findings for publication, I do not think the speculative/common knowledge aspects in particular would stand up to scrutiny and I find them (personally) a bit distracting from the actual results of the feeding trial. again it is interesting information, thank you for sharing with us and taking the time to discuss.

I don't want to sound rude but in the reptile industry it's prudent to take "common knowledge" and even to an extent breeder information a bit cautiously. There are many false and unsupported claims regarding almost every aspect of reptiles. Especially when it comes to nutrition little follow up is done, I think it would be invaluable information for example to do bloodwork on the study lizards and compair their chemistry as a measure of fitness/health. Nutritonal disorders (not just MBD/SNHP) are common in pet reptiles and fitness/health cannot really be judged on an external level alone.

Again, many of the concerns I have are outside the scope of the project as shown, but they are certainly questions I've hoped to find answers for and that the community as a whole can benefit from when considered in a scientific context, rather than anecdotal.

 

[Taterbug]

As so that I do not forget : the two studies I have that analised b. dubia. I can't speak to the validity of the assays but it does pique my interest that the fat values are quite different that advertisers values....

http://jbbbsonline.com/admin/php/uploads/5_pdf.pdf
http://journals.usamvcluj.ro/index.php/zootehnie/article/view/11656/9456

 

[springyfc]

Suggestions

>>Increase sample size by at least 10x.

>>Ensure all participant hatchlings are fed and housed individually under identical conditions (this will ensure no dominance behaviour will influence the results) .

>>Ensure all have exactly the same access to UVA , UVB , the same temperature basking spot, same D/N schedule (I suggest 15h on / 9h off) and same temperature gradient in each of their tanks.

>>Ensure all participant hatchlings are fed exactly the same protein mass of live insects each feeding.

>> standardise the size (mass per insect) of the feeder insects used, ie try to stay with a standard size BSF maggot and similar with the alternative feeder insect, give or take 10% say wrt mass per insect.

>> standardise your gutloading (what is used , for how many days prior insect being eaten)

>> standardise the calcium dusting regime (to ensure each insect has a similar load of calcium dust adhering to it

>> test the Ca ratio (chemical assay in a testing laboratory) for your standardised gutloaded & dusted insects to ensure you know exactly what the hatchlings are getting (and Include the test reports in your report).

It would be interesting to see effects of using standardised size crickets (who are gutloaded and dusted) and standardised size silkworms (fed using chow , fed fresh black mulberry leaves ( most common variety grown , yes I know ideally they should be on white mulberry leaves but these are quite hard to find ).

Not practical for me to participate in your study as I'm based o/seas in Australia and unfortunately BSF maggots are very hard to come by here, in that none of the insect laboratories breed them for sale commercially.

It's very exciting to see your discussion points! What you just described was a powerful digestibility study if it's done correctly. It does, however, look very expensive, and take lots of time too. This community does need a scientist leader to architect the whole building. However, what we can do is we can start with some affordable small projects, answer one questions at a time, just to build up small bricks for a solid building.

I might have done a poor job to describe the study, so the goal of this study was to demonstrate a real world situation, and thus a lot of parameters were not considered. Per your suggestion, the equal amount protein mass intake, or calcium dusting regime for individual insects were not considered because it's unlikely to occur for pet keepers.

Appreciate your input for the advice. If you are interested in and have time for doing a project with us, we do have access to a start-up bsf facility in Australia, and it should be easy to supply you BSFL. Please email [email protected]

 

[springyfc]

As so that I do not forget : the two studies I have that analised b. dubia. I can't speak to the validity of the assays but it does pique my interest that the fat values are quite different that advertisers values....

http://jbbbsonline.com/admin/php/uploads/5_pdf.pdf
http://journals.usamvcluj.ro/index.php/zootehnie/article/view/11656/9456

You are absolutely right about the current situation. There were very few publications are directly relevant to bearded dragon cares, and even fewer relevant to individual feeder insects. Due to the lack of the information, a lot claims in this community is based on personal experiences, with personal bias. However, it's also true that this chaos existed in all other fields, and they built up the knowledge foundations for the start of science--imagine what would scientists do experiment with if there weren't existing statements floating around already. So this field will get more and more clear in the future.

It's also brutally true that science work has direct links to the available fundings. I guess the current feeder industry is still not big enough to receive enough attention at the federal level, otherwise there should be plenty studies already published under public funding support. This is crucial as the digestibility experiment design described by kingofnobbys is certainly not affordable for us, but without any doubt, that's valuable information.

Just an ease on this, the current post is for marketing purpose in the reptile community, and probably none of the statements would be carried out to the writing of the actual articles, even the results itself would probably be used as supporting data for a larger project. This doesn't mean that they were false, before data being presented empirically, my statements are to the best of my knowledge, and it's generated from a fairly large pool and considerable length of time. So to some degree, it's the best information available.

 

[springyfc]

As so that I do not forget : the two studies I have that analised b. dubia. I can't speak to the validity of the assays but it does pique my interest that the fat values are quite different that advertisers values....

http://jbbbsonline.com/admin/php/uploads/5_pdf.pdf
http://journals.usamvcluj.ro/index.php/zootehnie/article/view/11656/9456

There are also some tricks I know people do to get a better analysis report. If a product, not necessarily the insect, is poor in protein, they can starve the animal so it burns more fat, and at the end, the total percentage of protein could go up because a relatively smaller portion of fat. And even though you know what exactly the protein/lipid level in the insect, what does it mean to the animal is still unclear...

The nutrient contents in the insect could fluctuate in many ways, besides the life stages, such as health state, frass residue on the exoskeleton, storaging time/method, gutload, and time sitting after gutload,... The variables are too many, making the nutrient content in the bugs are not truely predictable. So in my opinion, a more practically valuable information is what's the effect on the animals at the end, and this is the philosophy that's structuring most of my researches at the moment.