The WORST season in Golden Gate Geckos' history!

[eric]

I spoke with a major Meal worm suppliers grand daughter, and she told me that her Grandpa had the grain tested and it came back positive for pesticides!!! What puzzles me the most and I've spoken to Marcia about this, why would she tell me this? did she slip up? Was she trying to warn me? And now the meal worm suppliers all have a different story,they changed the feed or the feed was moldy or they just didn't grow fast enough to supply everyone! My two cents worth is THEY ARE LYING!!! I think the granddaughter gave out information she wasn't suppose to. Just my thoughts.

(I think insect breeders need to post on their websites, their soil and grain sample test results. just my opinion.)

 

[KelliH]

Pesticide chemicals could explain some of the issues some of us have been having...

 

[GeckoGathering]

Meal Worm Food

Pesticide chemicals could explain some of the issues some of us have been having...

Last year I had all kinds of problems, as most have already described.......For 2008 I changed all or parts of the 4 things that I felt affected my eggs hatching and bad eggs.
To make this to the point one of the things I changed was what I use to feed my meal worms before the geckos get them. Last year I used Chick feed starter........I changed this year to Laying hen crumbles because on the back of the Chick feed it had a warning that read:
DO NOT FEED TO LAYING HENS.....After reading the contents of both bags I found two chemicals in the Chick feed that was not a part of the Layer Hen Crumbles............Never went any farther .........just immediately changed to the Layer Hen Crumbles thinking if they didn't want laying hen eating it I sure didn't want Laying Geckos. I will need to stop at the feed place and read what the chemicals were. Maybe I can get an opinion from the manufacturer what exactly these do to affect hens.....Who knows what the worm farms use?......Oh, from having all the problems last year to this. I am 100 % hatching this year. No bad eggs, no defects, no terminated bodies......Not sure how if this could be the problem but I feel it needs checked out now that I thought of it.......take care HJ.........

 

[bro paul]

Sorry to hear about all the bad seasons out there...I know it must be terribly frustrating. We haven't seen anything unusual here and we are having what I consider a good to very good season with egg hatch rates. We feed primarily meal worms and then crickets about every other week. This isn't much help, but I figured I'd share that everything is "normal" for me right now.

 

[KelliH]

Sorry to hear about all the bad seasons out there...I know it must be terribly frustrating. We haven't seen anything unusual here and we are having what I consider a good to very good season with egg hatch rates. We feed primarily meal worms and then crickets about every other week. This isn't much help, but I figured I'd share that everything is "normal" for me right now.

Paul, thanks for posting. If you don't mind, could you pm me where you get your mealies? Thanks!

 

[Franks_Geckos]

It looks like my conspiracy theory isn't too plausible, but my pesticide suspicion is basically confirmed to some degree.....hmmmmmm... I wonder if the mealies I just got this past weekend are able to be trusted.... I REALLY want to avoid crickets if I can and stay on mealies and supers....

 

[giantkeeper]

Do not be afraid of ruining your reputations! If anything you will gain respect from others by being honest and open, and helping us "the leopard gecko community" figure out what the heck is going on this year (if anything weird IS).

What Kelli says is spot on. Most big breeders keep to themselves, or their big breeder clicks. It alienates everyone outside of that "status". By sharing in your triumphs, as well as your defeats you build a stronger bond with your peers and customers.

I did not want to comment earlier on my season because I felt it was innapropriate. Now it sounds like I should post my information.

For 2008 I have roughly about 85 babies hatch and probably another 30 eggs in the incubator. I am currently at 100% hatch rate.

These 100+ eggs were produced from a group of 20 females. Some of these females did not produce any eggs, several produced only a few.

I've gotten 3 infertile eggs this season (evident by the fact that they molded immediatly)

I have produced 30 Enigma variations this season with 3 displaying the "circling" behavior.

2 babies that will not eat (1 Mack Snow Blazing Blizzard & 1 Normal)

0 deformities

I do not feed mealworms anymore. I had several babies die last season after eating mealworms. I use Crickets, Superworms, and Waxworms to feed all of my animals.

I buy bulk calcium powder (Osteo-form) which my adult breeder females can be seen lapping it up from their calcium dishes. I have been quite suprised at the amount they actually go through.

1 adult female died, but I suspect that it was from her being egg bound.

That is what I have from this season. Last season (my first) I was at a 50% hatch rate with several dead babies in the eggs and born with deformities.

 

[DLS Reptile]

Marcia, I am very sorry to hear about your bad stroke of luck. I have had excellent luck. My hatch rate is 99%. This is what got me thinking. I am very close to Paul (living in Pa) and there is a good chance that this is a west coast problem. Every hatchling that I have is perfect. No defects. One eclipse has a slight kink in his tail, that is it. I have 50 hatchlings ( I am a small breeder) and they are all eating like crazy and very healthy. We have all seen your geckos and I have said this before, every gecko that I have ever seen on your site is beautiful and very healthy looking. This is obviously not something you are doing. Insecticides will create all kinds of havoc with embryos. I also agree with what Thomas said. A lot of people would try to hide this. you did not. This says a lot about you...

 

[KelliH]

Thank you for posting Chris!

 

[FelanMoira]

.. but I bet there are chemicals that would cause this in the pesticide realm. If I had to take a guess on what may have occurred, I would go so far as to say that someone (probably a major producer of mealworms) did something (chemical enhancement) to try and improve their business,

Many of the flea products like Frontline and such do this - they do not kill the adult fleas, but either make the eggs not able to hatch or make the adults unable to reproduce - the chemical used in Advantage - imidacloprid is used in farming in another form, so it's possible it might be in the wheat and etc grains used. It's theorized that it may be the cause of honey bee colony collapse disorder from the residual in the plant nectar that gets made into honey.

 

[Albey]

Wow, I am really sorry to hear that some of my friends on the Forum are having such problems this year. (Marcia and Kelli I was really looking forward to picking up some more killer breeding stock from the both of you again this year). I do not feed Mealworms I only use Crickets, and I have not had any problems so far. The first part of the season (I breed year round) was mostly Enigma production and they bred like crazy. The Fat-tails had the same crappy production they always have so nothing new there. I am just getting going with the Tang’s so we will see if there are any problems there. I did have a problem with my long time breeder Line Bred Snow’s having Pin Worms. That is the only real problem I ever have with crickets. They almost always contain them and they can affect long time captives. I just make sure to give a cocktail of Panacur and Flagyl and the problem is gone.

Once again I am sorry to hear about the problems some of you are having. That really sucks.

 

[malt_geckos]

I wonder if any other reptile breeders are having issues and not just gecko breeders...

 

[FelanMoira]

I have a question pertaining to the theory about
the meal worm problem and if it is related to the bedding/meal that was being used
Please don't laugh at me because i don't know if this is ridiculous or not

Is the bedding commonly used the "chicken meal" that feed stores sell to feed poultry and is there anything going on in the poultry world with animals being feed this meal?

Sorry-if this is not applicable or sounds way out in left field but it just crossed my mind

OK-I thought some more about it and I came up with these 2 links from
doing a simple search on "chicken feed problems"

Arsenic hits very close to home for me since my tap water levels of it exceed the safety standards four or more times per year

We were talking about growth hormones-from reading the first link-I got that they are already present in the some of chicken meal being fed to poultry
I don't know if this is anything or a "blind alley"

Most of the chicken feeds do not contain arsenic anymore, they contain the anti-coccicidiostat Corid or the antibiotic Bacitracin, if anything - many don't contain either. I've not seen any of the ones that contain Roxarsone, the arsenic-based chemical around here for years. Maybe in the places where the meat chickens are raised its more readily available.

And hormones aren't used in poultry feed - http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/poulsci/newsletter/newsletter_nov04.pdf

Holly
(Keeper of Exhibition Poultry - "Show Chickens")

 

[FelanMoira]

I was told directly by the mealworm supplier I got my mealies from that there 'may' have been a problem with pesticides in the feed/bedding for the mealworms. I also spoke to another well-known feeder farm that there was a mold spore in the bedding/feed. So which is it?

There may be a combination of problems going on - a mold issue made the mealies susceptible to the pesticide or vice versa.

If there is a problem with the mealworms, it seems to me that it would also affect other animals that eat them... like birds, primates, and animals such as sugar gliders. Does anyone know of any bird or primate breeders that feed mealworms that have had low productivity and/or egg and hatchling issues?

Oftentimes, toxins affect one group before they affect others - our birds of prey were almost wiped out first, and now the polar bears are feeling the effects of the DDT that almost wiped out the birds of prey. It might take a few years for some of the mammals to be affected. But the bird breeders might be seeing effects this year, if not when this years babies are sexually mature.

ON a side note, it's been a bad year for chicken breeders - the heat and humidity had drowned alot of chicks in egg.

 

[malt_geckos]

some articles on pseticides and birth defects:
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/pesticides/
http://www.chemicalbodyburden.org/cs_organochl.htm
This one talks alot about defects:http://www.wddty.com/03363800372891206756/pesticides-the-poisons-all-around-us.html

difocol(pesticide) and it's results in an aligator habitat causing birth defects and sexual abnormalities! :http://www.checnet.org/HealtheHouse/education/articles-detail.asp?Main_ID=489

 

[LadyGecko]

Most of the chicken feeds do not contain arsenic anymore, they contain the anti-coccicidiostat Corid or the antibiotic Bacitracin, if anything - many don't contain either. I've not seen any of the ones that contain Roxarsone, the arsenic-based chemical around here for years. Maybe in the places where the meat chickens are raised its more readily available.

And hormones aren't used in poultry feed - http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/poulsci/newsletter/newsletter_nov04.pdf

Holly
(Keeper of Exhibition Poultry - "Show Chickens")

Holly
Thanks for clearing that up for me

Sandy

 

[bkaufmann]

i hope its not that bad for me when i start to breed

 

[FelanMoira]

Holly
Thanks for clearing that up for me

Sandy

Sandy - I thought that about the hormones until just recently too - I'm a little worried about the rox ... stuff I'm too tired to go look for the spelling right now since it's used in the meat production birds still though.

oops - hijacked the thread!

But my chick feed that I use in my mealies only has the antibiotic in it - so the mealies should be bacteria free - see still on topic!

 

[Golden Gate Geckos]

I know that chicken mash is made from non-human grade corn products. Much of the corn used came from fields that suffered from blight, or another mold/fungus which rendered the corn unfit for human consumption, so it is used for making animal feed.

This mold can stay dormant in the kernels and if exposed to warm, damp environments can begin to grow again. Some of these molds are toxic, such as the mycotoxin Aspergillus flavus. Toxic chicken mas wreaks havock on poultry farms by causing low egg production, embryo mortality, and weak non-thriving chicks.

Now what puzzles me is that I was told by Dr. Daniel Wentz from Rep-Cal that mealworms (or any other larvae) could not truly be gut-loaded. If this is true, then it would seem to me that anything toxic would kill the worm before it would build-up in their bodies to levels that could be passed on the the animals that feed on them.

I have been on online bird forums asking if any breeders that feed mealworms have had any issues with low egg production, mortality, and/or weak of deformed hatchlings. I'll do the same for other animals that eat mealworms as a staple.

 

[snared99]

Sandy - I thought that about the hormones until just recently too - I'm a little worried about the rox ... stuff I'm too tired to go look for the spelling right now since it's used in the meat production birds still though.

oops - hijacked the thread!

But my chick feed that I use in my mealies only has the antibiotic in it - so the mealies should be bacteria free - see still on topic!

Just out of cuirousity what anitbiotic is in your feed? Baytril? I only ask because there was a big uproar about the real possibility of antibiotic resistance, and if it has crossed into the reptile world that very scary