onceblue":1kadsmd0 said:I don't know if a study has been performed, but I know that there are a lot of personal accounts of issues feeding meal worms, not limited to bearded dragons.
My bearded dragon was owned by someone else before me and he was fed meal worms and super worms that were too big for him. He never ended up impacted and was declared healthy by a vet shortly after I adopted him.
So I think it's possible for some beardies to eat them and not have issues, but in my opinion, it's not worth the risk - hence why I stopped feeding those things to him. There are plenty of other nutritious feeders that can be used.
Also, I don't personally follow the line of thinking that if they would do it in wild, it means it's okay in captivity. In the wild, they would eat what's available, sure, including insects that are too large and potentially insects that would harm them. But if we have the chance to do better in captivity, we should. In the wild, they are subjected to predators, but we don't put them through that stress in captivity just because they would experience it in the wild.
Keep in mind, too, that dragons kept in captivity with good husbandry have the potential to live a lot longer than those in the wild, specifically because we protect them and have the ability to make good choices for them.
There are suggestions in the literature and numerous popular press reports that
soft-bodied insects like silkworm larvae contain less chitin and are more digestible
than other commonly used feeder insects [Frye and Calvert, 1989]. The data
presented shows that on a dry matter basis the estimated chitin content of silkworm
larvae is similar to that of crickets (both nymphs and adults) and mealworm larvae.
[...]
The extremely high amino acid content of the ADF fraction for adult mealworms also supports the current thinking that the hardness of insect cuticle is primarily a function of the
degree of sclerotization and the amino acid content of the cuticular proteins rather than its chitin content [Nation, 2002].
[...]
These data do not address the issue of protein and amino acid availability
especially for the amino acids from proteins that are either highly sclerotized or
which may be bound to chitin. Quantitative data on the digestibility of nitrogen/
crude protein of insects are limited.
[...]
In summary, this study suggests that the fiber content of insects (measured as
ADF) consists not only of chitin but also significant amounts of amino acids that
likely represent cuticular proteins. Insects with ‘‘harder’’ cuticles do not seem to
contain significantly more chitin than softer bodied insects but rather their ADF
fraction seems to contain a much higher proportion of amino acids than softer
bodied insects.
onceblue":32o2ucpz said:Taterbug - Thanks so much for all of those links. It looks like I have a lot of reading to do! I'm pretty excited, I've had a hard time finding studies, and the one about the chitin content in mealworms is particularly interesting, going by the quote you posted.
It's interesting that you mentioned butterworms in regard to the commercial ploys of the feeder industy. I was just talking to someone in another group about how butterworms should only be used as treats because they are high in fat (and I actually used that article that you linked as a source, as I had found it previously), and they insisted that butterworms were the best possible staple for beardies and that they weren't high in fat at all. I asked them where they got their info from, and they said it was a "well-respected vendor" — so it seems there's more pushing of insects going on in the industry than I originally thought! I personally love butterworms because they can be kept in the refrigerator which is very convenient, but I would never feed them as a staple due to fat content. I only feed them sparingly as treats to my beardie.
Also, cynikalkat - I'll never understand why people can be so rude when they're (at least in their mind) trying to "educate" a person. Even if she's trying to help, being rude is not going to get someone to listen.