Superworm confusion...

[lizardlove]

Okay, I started out thinking that my leo needed to gain some weight, so I switched her to superworms. She absolutely loves them, and will eat them indefinitely. Then I made the stupid mistake of looking on Yahoo! Answers for information on them.

I heard a few things. The first is the whole eat through the stomach thing, which is bull. The next few I wanted to post so you guys can tell me which is true and which isn't.

-They are high in fat content and you can't feed just supers to a leo, they also need something else.

-The shells on superworms can cause impaction.

-You have to have food available for the superworms so that they are getting nutrients, or you can't feed them to your gecko. (I'm not sure if maybe the bedding they come in doubles as food for them? The company is BugCo, you can get it at a local chain store. If not, how do I go about providing them food?)

-They're too big for a 31g leo to eat.

I just want to know if I can feed her these. I hate all the conflicting information because it just made me confused. Any tips?

 

[acpart]

I can't tell you about nutritional content, but those of mine who eat superworms have been fine. As I've posted before, I had an 11 gram gecko who chosed down on 2 superworms the first time I fed her, did fine, and weighed 14 grams by the next feeding. Superworms, like anything you feed your gecko, do need to eat nutritious stuff in order to be nutritious for your gecko. The stuff they come in from the pet store, at best is wheat bran which is limited in nutrition as I understand it and at worst is sawdust (but I'd vote for wheat bran). The easiest thing to do is to get some grains (oats, rye, etc) and unsweetened cereal and to supplement with vegetable parings that won't get moldy so they can have some moisture.

Aliza

 

[Haligren]

Tiamat absolutely loves her superworms. I have heard some on here say not to use them as a staple due to their high fat content, but from most of the information I've read on them they're more nutritious and less chitinous than mealies. Not sure about that but I haven't had any problems with feeding Tiamat.

As for gutloading them, yes, it is important to properly gutload your feeders, whether they be supers or crickets, before offering them to your reptile. I use bran flakes, oatmeal and Fluker's brand gutload as well as some slices of potate for moisture. Although I'm thinking of switching the bran flakes for something more nutritious. I'd imagine they get most of their food from the gutload and oatmeal though.