Mealworm impaction?

[Boom King]

So I'm thinking of making the switch to mealworms as my main feeder for the obvious convenience factors of keeping/maintaining them over crickets. Mealworms seems to be a very popular choice among the members of this forum. I am currently feeding my gecko 10 mealworms every other day. I will have to throw in the odd cricket or so every once in a while to vary the diet and also partly out of necessity as the calcium and vitamin supplements do not stick well to the exoskeletons of the mealworms. Although mealworms are popular on this forum, there are members of other gecko and reptile forums on the web who seem to be strongly against using them as a main feeder based on the reasoning that the hard exoskeleton can cause impaction and that they are poor in nutrition. Has anyone ever had this issue with mealworms? There is an interesting article by Dr. Danny Brown, "The Pros and Cons of Mealworms as a Food for Reptiles", which you can easily google. Although it does raise some points to consider, I am a bit skeptical on some of the findings as there is no explanation on how he obtained the data or came to some of the conclusions.

 

[leocobra23]

Ive had my gecko for 6months and i used crikets at first then he got bored of those so i tried mealworms and then he gained wait and became more energetic. So here is my opinon, i havent had any problems so far and that the mealworms are way easier to care for than crikets, well thats my statement i hope it helped.

 

[Mvanschoick]

So I'm thinking of making the switch to mealworms as my main feeder for the obvious convenience factors of keeping/maintaining them over crickets. Mealworms seems to be a very popular choice among the members of this forum. I am currently feeding my gecko 10 mealworms every other day. I will have to throw in the odd cricket or so every once in a while to vary the diet and also partly out of necessity as the calcium and vitamin supplements do not stick well to the exoskeletons of the mealworms. Although mealworms are popular on this forum, there are members of other gecko and reptile forums on the web who seem to be strongly against using them as a main feeder based on the reasoning that the hard exoskeleton can cause impaction and that they are poor in nutrition. Has anyone ever had this issue with mealworms? There is an interesting article by Dr. Danny Brown, "The Pros and Cons of Mealworms as a Food for Reptiles", which you can easily google. Although it does raise some points to consider, I am a bit skeptical on some of the findings as there is no explanation on how he obtained the data or came to some of the conclusions.

I'm new to forums so i hope i'm writing this right, . .. . but we have a few beardies and geckos. We us to feed them crickets until the cricket problem started, and we also feed them super worms and mealworms. Between us and the 5 or 6 friends we have that feed meal and/or super worms we have noticed that our reptiles do have some problems with exoskeleton. With my "G" beardie i usually feed her the 'white' ones. The problem i have with the meal worms and super worms is that she gets a little to fat and she has a depth sight problem and the super worms crawl away and burrow to fast for her. I would however recommend using the black soldier fly grubs if you're tired of dusting crickets/worms. From what i hear they have a lot more calcium and my reptiles love them. :main_thumbsup:

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Personally I prefer superworms and my geckos all love them. Less chitin and more meat per worm. No over-feeding tho, or they can get obese. Hatchlings get mealies till they're almost a month old, then small supers. I breed supers so all sizes are available and the protein level is higher than what's charted due to the food they get.

Impaction issues are typically the result of ingesting things like sand, bark, pebbles... One of mine ate some spaghnum and vomited. Not saying it can't happen, but I've never heard anyone say they had impaction problems just from mealies.

Rephashy's ICB Plus sticks to any feeders.

 

[sammer021486]

+1 to fl_orchidslave

I only feed supers to my adults and mealworms to my hatchlings until they are about 1 month old then I start tossing a super worm in their dish too.

Repashy Calcium Plus will stick to supers for days.

 

[Boom King]

I'll have to give the superworms suggestion a try after my stock of mealworms run out. Do you think I could obtain the supers from a large pet store chain here in Canada? How many do you give your gecko in one feeding?

 

[fl_orchidslave]

Most of my adults eat every 2-3 days, 2-3 worms. IDK what's available in Canada but since you still have mealies, there's time to look around for supers. TRex markets the calcuim plus in retail outlets for Rephashy supplements. It's a balanced dusting mixture of calci, D3, all the vitamins, so there's no need for other stuff.

 

[sammer021486]

I'll have to give the superworms suggestion a try after my stock of mealworms run out. Do you think I could obtain the supers from a large pet store chain here in Canada? How many do you give your gecko in one feeding?

You should be able to get them from a chain pet store.

What part of Canada are you in? I am in Ontario and order my superworms from canadianfeeders.com and my Repashy products from northerngecko.ca