curious about mealworms

[danaday]

Hi everyone

So I want to get an owl and cordon blue pair and am curious about mealworms. I've been researching a lot about them. Anyway, my question is can insect eating finches eat the dried mealworms you can buy in the wildbird feed section of most stores? I think they are made by Kaytee. They come dried in a sealable bag and cost about $7.00 for a bag. I've been curious about them for a while. I know nothing will really compare to the live foods, but I don't think I could handle live ones and etc. Has anyone ever bought or seen what I am talking about? Is it safe for finches and etc without giving them parasites and etc? I know they are more marketed for wild birds/finches. But I thought maybe it might be safe for exotic finches too? Any thoughts on this is much appreciated.

[Sally]

Personally, I found that my birds didn't really care for the freeze-dried mealworms. Many will chop them up and add them to eggfood to boost the protein level. One thing I found is popular with most of my waxbills is freeze-dried bloodworms, found in the fish food section of the pet shop. I mix them with eggfood, otherwise they are so lightweight they blow around the cage, and most of my birds love them. They are higher in protein than the f/d mealworms too. I didn't bother feeding live food to my Owls anyway, but the CBs will appreciate the f/d bloodworms. When I feed live mealworms to my waxbills, I order the mini size, much more likely to be eaten than the large.

[wellingtoncdm]

Most birds prefer live mealworms.

[danaday]

Thanks for the info. The live mealworms are a big turn off for me. I don't want to buy live mealworms or breed them. Maybe I will just keep wanting owls and cordon blues as a fantasy?! lol But if it ever changes I will look into dried blood worms.

[wellingtoncdm]

You may do alright with the owls. They don't require live food. The cordons are more difficult to breed.

[wilkifam]

My birds devour the freeze dried ones, and won't touch the live ones. Try them.......

[Rox]

I feed mostly dried mealworms and my CB's happily eat them. I'm battling to get my tank of live worms going (lots of beetles but no worms...). When I do have live food available, I usually only offer it once a week. Otherwise my CB's, Star's and Parrot finches happily eat the dried worms.

[debbie276]

I haven't had to give any kinds of bugs to my owls yet and they do great!

[Nerien]

I'm battling to get my tank of live worms going (lots of beetles but no worms...)

If you have live beetles, you will soon have worms. Just leave the beetles in there, keep adding whatever 'meal' you are feeding them as needed, and soon you will have worms. Might take a few weeks, just wait. They start out really small, so you'd miss seeing them, keep adding more food, and they grow.

I've had a tub of them self-generating for our hedgehog for three years, now. Don't even add new food to it that much, I think they must be eating each other (eww!), but a hedgehog only eats a few a day, not the dozens or hundreds that birds can, so I don't need nearly as many as I have in there.

[cindy]

this is a really great article in regards to mealworms, raising them

http://www.sialis.org/raisingmealworms.htm