Any Tips on increasing Growth of ASF?

Any tips on producing bigger stronger ASF, or giving them better food to increase their size, they grow sooooooo slow

Other than a good diet nothing so far ive heard of. ASFs are just natural slow growers. Males grow faster than females if that helps.

A higher fat diet (sunflower seeds) will speed up their growth....I wouldn't push your future breeders to grow quick, but if your growing them for feeders then I guess its ok.

Only thing you can do to produce bigger, stronger ASF is:

1.) Make sure you are feeding them the right stuff

2.) mix several different lines together. a colony that has been imbred for many generations will naturaly become smaller and weaker.

I've heard of someone who feeds horse feed to theirs for quicker growth (for the feeders)

Mine have always grown slow and taken even longer to mature sexually.

It's just the species.. you can't do too much about it. Changing their diet to a good Matsuri block and some added things could help a little. Be careful not to feed them anything harmful.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

I've heard of someone who feeds horse feed to theirs for quicker growth (for the feeders)

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I heard of someone also who does this!

Im feeding at the moment: Dog food, Pet Essentials. When I first started I thought any dog food was good as long as it didnt have red food coloring, Now learning better advice. I still have this 30 lb bag I want to finish off and change to a better recommend food/mix for them with $$$ in mind too. What do you guys recommend I do???

Protein 21%
Crude Fat 10%
fiber 4.5%
moisture 12%

I been throwing dry pasta in every 2 days for the last month. Keep in mind-I live in Boston Mass., its hard to get my hands on a lot of things in the city

Where are the recommend places to go get each food for a good mix, thinking in bulk, to make a 50lb mix that I can make and last me 4 or 5 months without going bad

Also will rats which I just got today, will they be harmed in any way by that dog food???

Want to correct any errors now and put/keep my breeders and snakes in good health, thank you

I do not claim to be any kind of nutitionalist... That said. It looks to me like what you are feeding is crap. Compare the numbers on the stuff your feeding to the numbers on Mazuri 6f.

http://www.mazuri.com/PDF/5M30.pdf

Even more important then that.... compare the ingredients that actually make up those numbers.

Why are you feeding that when you can get Mazuri 6f for probably the same price or cheaper? (the going rate for mazi 6f is 24 bucks for 50 lbs.

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Originally Posted by monk90222

I heard of someone also who does this!

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Probably the same someone! ;)

Not sure it is relevant, but I find my ASFs grow fastest it I pull them a bit late from the parental colony, and then I do not over crowd them as juvies.

Bruce

We feed Mazuri 6F, (switching to 9F here shortly) that is 16% protein and 6% fat. I've had good growth on both.

Surprisingly, I never saw a reasonable difference between the high quality grain ingredients in Harlan 2018, compared to the 6F.

I give a handul of seeds once a week. I have small hands, so figure its about a 1/4 cup. I just do it to keep them busy, and they seem to like it. It's mostly millet (which they LOVE) black sunflower seeds, and a little bit of cracked corn (so little, I didnt know it was in there when I first bought it).

Couldnt really tell ya if this makes them grow faster, but it seems to me they are the same size as a weaner norway rat after a month or so.

Hope that helps

Guess I got to do some hunting around for a place to order me some Mazuri
6f or 9f. Ive also been leaving my weanlings in longer I noticed they grow a bit quicker

thank you every1 for ur advice, please feel free to add ur :twocents: