Beef heart alternative

[paris]

i know that beefheart is not good for a staple for caudates but it is a good one for a supplement or to fatten up thin newts. i was able to buy turkey hearts that were frozen and looked better than the beef ones-is there any reason that beef is what is commercially available in the pet trade(any direct benefit?) or will these turkey ones do?

 

[edward]

Hi Paris,
Its okay as a supplemental food item. It is not a balanced food item so its use should be limited. There is a risk of protozoal infections from this food source but the risk is small. If I remember correctly earthworms can be nutritionally balanced, are easy to digest and have a high caloric value (important to fatten animals up). Beef and turkey are both used commercially in the pet trade but as beef is in higher demand, grades of beef suitable for the pet market are usually more available.

Ed

 

[paris]

with earthworms-can you also chop them up and freeze them like beef heart? will they survive the freezing w/o turning to mush?

 

[edward]

I do not know if they will survive freezing. Maybe someone has tried freezing them and will chime in on the topic.
Ed

 

[fabrizio]

They very probably would die... but you can definitely put them in a normal fridge, at 3-5°C. They won't die, but they would anyway need some soil, because I think they continue eating - though very little and slowly. I think so for I made die some that were in a little jar without soil.

Fabrizio.

(Message edited by fabrizio on April 11, 2004)

 

[jennifer]

Paris, I have frozen bits of chopped worm and they were still edible (non-mush) when thawed. I have used this method when I go on vacation and have a newt-sitter that is unwilling to chop live worms.

 

[alan]

They freeze fine but are dead on thawing, so you have to hand feed or the animal has to take non-moving food.
Some small loss of nutritional value, so live is best. Worms are easily stored as long as the temperatures are low enough.

 

[leighton]

We have recently set up a wormery in our garden shed. It was a little work, but seems to be reasonably stable after about a month. As a result we get our earthworms live from soil of known provenance.

We had a spectacular failure with a smaller attempt some time ago, which was just way too crowded for the worms we had. Now we estimate we have about 50-100 in around 20 litres of soil (about a square foot surface area).

As a direct alternative to beef heart (which our butcher looked strangely at us for requesting) we use pig liver.