Caution when feeding termites & tip on stopping ants

[L in Ontario]

After reading horror stories of mealies ating birds from the inside out I now understand why they recommend to blanch (kill) before serving. I decided I didn't want to take the risk.

WHAT??????

Candace, could you let us know where and when you read this info. I have been feeding live mealies all along, and never heard of this happening.

That's a new one to me too! I sure hope it's not possible. How bizzare!

[Ursula]

I've read about this myth in pretty much every pet forum that I've been on and I am convinced it is not true. (If it was birds wouldn't eat live insects in the wild, would they?)

[CandoAviary]

That's what I was thinking too. But I also know sometimes captive raised birds loose some of thier wild instinct common sense.......
Wild birds do not eat poison plants but a captive bird will

[Ursula]

That's what I was thinking too. But I also know sometimes captive raised birds loose some of thier wild instinct common sense.......
Wild birds do not eat poison plants but a captive bird will

Wild birds will gobble up mealies though and I trust they wouldn't if they weren't good for them and their babies. I wouldn't want to add up how much money we spend on mealworms for the birds in the yard alone. We already fed generations of bluebirds, wrens, chikadees, bluejays, etc over the last 8 years that we live here...

[cindy]

That's what I was thinking too. But I also know sometimes captive raised birds loose some of thier wild instinct common sense.......
Wild birds do not eat poison plants but a captive bird will

Wild birds will gobble up mealies though and I trust they wouldn't if they weren't good for them and their babies. I wouldn't want to add up how much money we spend on mealworms for the birds in the yard alone. We already fed generations of bluebirds, wrens, chikadees, bluejays, etc over the last 8 years that we live here...

I would just stay away from feeding insects with larger than mealworm pinches/mouths. Most birds that eat them play with them a bit and instinctively know to how to eat them. The mealworms this myth talks about are the larger size grubs (huge waxworms) that do bite. Things get lost in the translation of things, you know through the "grape vine" syndrome!

When we were feeding large waxworms to our bigger lizards we were told by one reptile dealer to pinch the heads off and feed the body immediately to the lizard. This was done mostly becasue of the mouth piece of the grub. We just switched to the larger mealies because I got pinched a few times.

[mickp]

have never heard of a finch being killed by a mealworm and doubt that it could ever be proven, finches that eat live food kill it first, picture a gold breast or cordon eating a mealworm, what do they do - they rip the damn mealworm to bits then eat the insides leaving behind the outer shells.
their beaks are not big enough to swallow anything in the way that a seagull does.