Beardie Caresheet...

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With the mealworms, you can give the white, freshly shed ones, but they aren't very nutritious anyway.

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Actually, if you take a pin and stick a hole or two in them before giving them to the lizard, you can increase by up to 10 times the amount of nutrition absorbed. It's the chitinous exoskeleton that keeps them from being particularly nutritious.

well now there's something i never knew! nice tip marla! :)

It's actually linked to a source article if you look at my Which Worm FAQ on this site. That's not the only source for the info, but it is the easiest I found to be web-accessible. It does make sense, though, that if you pierce the chitin, the digestive juices can better do their job.

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Originally Posted by Marla

We do have one. It was just on page 2. ;) http://www.ball-pythons.net/modules....warticle&id=23

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OY! Marla, please forgive me! It was late, I was very tired! I didn't even notice that there WAS a page two! I feel rather sheepish! Sorry about that!

Hee hee! That's okay. You just pushed me to get off my tush and force alphabetical sorting of the articles so that people will be more likely to guess there'd be a page 2 and look for the link. ;)

how about piercing the abdomen of crickets? Does that also increase the level of nutrients that are absorbed?

**I vaguely remember reading an artice that talked about a study where insects were fed whole vs. insects that had their exoskeleton pierced. Anyone have a link to that again?

That may be the same article that I mentioned being linked from my Which Worms entry in FAQ. I think it would likely apply to any critter with a chitinous exoskeleton, which would definitely include crickets.