Book Review: Breeding Food Animals/Live Food for Vivarium Animals (Friedrich & Volland)

[Otterwoman]

Breeding Food Animals/Live Food for Vivarium Animals (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Co, 2004), 178 pp. [orig German: Futtertierzucht: Lebendfutter für Vivarientiere (Stuttgart: Eugen Ulmer GmbH & Co., 1981, 1992, and 1998].

This is a book about raising a variety of live foods, specifically written for the home hobbyist.

I am going to quote from Jennewt’s short Amazon review (“Much better than the subtitle suggests”) twice in this review. Here is the first quote:

The only fault I find with this book is that they should have done a better job with the translation and editing. It was originally written in German, and could have been greatly improved by some additional editing by a native English speaker familiar with the subject. In the section on Nematodes, the text jumps from vinegar eels to microworms without distinguishing between the two species, but I believe that this was an error, with some information perhaps being "lost in translation".

After a Forward, a Preface, and an Introduction (hey, Germans are nothing if not by-the-book) we come to the Basic Considerations. These include the advantages of live food vs. prepared foods, gut loading, dusting, and other practical considerations such as space, equipment, time, and even the good-will of your house or apartment-mates.

The book presents topics in order of size or complexity of the food animal, from plankton to nematodes (vinegar eels) to annelids (whiteworms, grindal worms, earthworms), mollusks (snails), crustaceans (daphnia, brine shrimp, pill bugs), insects (springtails, roaches), orthopterans (crickets, locusts, mealworms, weevils, flies), lepidopterans (moths) and finally to mammals (rats and mice).

I have done particularly well raising whiteworms, and I can say this about their whiteworm section: they make it seem a little more complex than it needs to be, or maybe I just have good luck with them; but they gave me two ideas on how to get rid of mites which I will try, next time they appear.
The same with springtails: I have two cultures of them, and I don’t use them much. One might even say I’m neglecting them. I feed them some baby oatmeal once a month or so and they continue to thrive. I’m sure they won’t die until I discover I desperately need them for something. But this book is describing the right way to do things, and I only seem to have success with foods that manage to survive even substandard care.

I have also raised fruit flies and whenever I started new cultures I’d end up with flies running amok in my kitchen (luckily I don’t cook and they’d quickly die for lack of food). This book shows an efficient transfer method with some used stocking that would have saved me hours of smashing flies on my counters.

The book ends with extensive references (most all of them in …you guessed it… German).

This book is what the OFI book (http://www.caudata.org/forum/showthread.php?t=61837) dreamed of being in its wildest dreams. If you are curious about live cultures and would like to try your hand at a variety of them, or want help deciding what to try, you can’t go wrong with this book. It’s a very useful reference, and I’m glad I have it.

I’m going to conclude with another quote from Jennewt’s review:

What's not to love about a book that features a pair of mating insects right on the cover?! This book is well worth having for anyone who raises live food.

(Is that what they were doing? I thought the mommy grasshopper was giving the baby grasshopper a piggy-back ride.)

Right now, the price is up up up. It’s available on Amazon used starting at $29.50, and even in German for $70.48. I KNOW I didn’t pay this price for the book, though I can’t remember what I did pay. So if you want it, be patient, or try some other book services.
Available on amazon.de starting at 18,50 Euros.

[Johnny O. Farnen]

I own this book also, got it on Amazon last year, used for 9 USD.

Definately have to aggree with the "lost in translation" bit.

Still a fine book.

[Mike]

Looks like a good book. There's one a lot like this by Mike Hellweg as well, but it's focused more on live foods for fish.

[Otterwoman]

Hmmmm...I see on Amazon:

Raising Live Foods (Complete Herp Care) (Paperback)
by Michael R. Hellweg (Author)
with a Bearded Dragon on the cover
160 pages
Publisher: TFH Publications , $10.17, due out in October '09

and

Culturing Live Foods: A Step-By-Step Guide to Producing Food for Your Home Aquarium (Hardcover)
240 pages , with tropical fish on the cover (I'm sure this is the book bobberly1 means).
Publisher: TFH Publications; 1 edition (June 2008)
starting at $25.05, with six 5-star reviews.

Johnny, do you have this book?

[Mike]

Bingo, looks like a great book and it just came out last year. A lot of other fish authors are raving about it, I may get it soon.