Crude Nutritional Analysis of Various Feeder Foods?

[sruli]

This forum has a nice Feeder List with photos. I would like to know if crude nutritional information is available for the various species? I know that gut-contents will make a great difference, as will the diet the critter was raised on. Still some generalizations should be possible - we have nutritional analysis for beef, too, even though feeds differ. Is this information available? Or rather, WHERE is this information available? Thanks.

(If this question has been hashed earlier, please forgive me as a newbie to these forums... I did search...)

 

[sruli]

Nevermind, I found it - thanks, Brad!

This forum has a nice Feeder List with photos. I would like to know if crude nutritional information is available for the various species? I know that gut-contents will make a great difference, as will the diet the critter was raised on. Still some generalizations should be possible - we have nutritional analysis for beef, too, even though feeds differ. Is this information available? Or rather, WHERE is this information available? Thanks.

(If this question has been hashed earlier, please forgive me as a newbie to these forums... I did search...)

 

[Dave Weldon]

Howdy,

For the record, here are some sites for insect nutritional analysis in no particular order :

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/Misc/insectnutrition.html
http://nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf
http://www.martinsreptiles.co.uk/ukchams/calciummbdd3.htm#calciumphos
http://www.chameleonnews.com/new/?page=article&id=92
http://www.mulberryfarms.com/faq.htm
http://www.greatlakeshornworm.com/
http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm

 

[sruli]

Thank you, this was very helpful. However, no data seems to be supplied for crude fiber. Even in an insect there is some fiber, or roughage, in the form of chitin, etc.... (The various freezedried crustatceans and annelids that I purchase for my fish, turtles, frogs include crude fiber data.) Where can I get information on crude fiber content?

Howdy,

For the record, here are some sites for insect nutritional analysis in no particular order :

http://www.ent.iastate.edu/Misc/insectnutrition.html
http://nagonline.net/Technical Papers/NAGFS00397Insects-JONIFEB24,2002MODIFIED.pdf
http://www.martinsreptiles.co.uk/ukchams/calciummbdd3.htm#calciumphos
http://www.chameleonnews.com/new/?page=article&id=92
http://www.mulberryfarms.com/faq.htm
http://www.greatlakeshornworm.com/
http://www.grubco.com/Nutritional_Information.cfm

 

[DMPanther]

nutrition of cockroaches

I've been feeding my Panther chameleon mostly cockroaches during the winter. They are so easy to keep and don't smell anywhere near what the crickets do.

I give them a homemade dry gutload mix using (listed randomly, not in order of quantity):
rice baby food
non-fat dry powdered milk
wheat germ
flaxseed meal
bee pollen

I also feed them:
carrots
bananas
broccoli

Occasionally:
hard cooked egg yolk
(rarely) potatoes

My question is: Is it possible that these well-fed roaches provide plenty of nutrition to my chameleon without offering him other insects?

I raise mealworms, which I occasionally/rarely give him. And I seldom have crickets. In the summertime he gets a wide array of insects. So, my concern is mostly his diet for the winter time.

My guy seems to be satisfied with the roaches!

I figure he's getting more nutrition than chitin (shell) ratio by eating roaches. My roaches are an orange-head hybrid. And I feed them when they are around 1" in size.

Is there any scientific data showing benefits of varying the insect?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts...
Dena

 

[sruli]

RE: nutrition of cockroaches

I am a novice at chameleon husbandry, but I do know something about nutrition. At first, reading your list, I thought it was pretty good, but without a commercial, nutrient-enriched gutload, you would inevitably miss a few things. But, I saw that you are also using bee pollen. Technically, I think bee pollen itself has everything an organism could need (although perhaps not in the proper ratios) or else very near to it. So I would give a guarded yes. Why guarded? I do not know as much about chameleon biochemistry - they probably do not manufacture every organic compound that they require.

Certain foods, even of animal origin can interfere with certain metabolic processes. For example, raw egg albumin can cause a problem with humans. I bring it up, because your roach could have some odd protein that interferes with absorption, production, or availability or some other trace requirement. Who knows?

I will go a step further. The roach almost certainly contains such a substance, but is it significant? Human beings can get along without certain essential trace nutrients for a very long time, perhaps forever (thinking of chromium here, but there are others).

Anyway, this is my armchair analysis. What species roach?

I've been feeding my Panther chameleon mostly cockroaches during the winter. They are so easy to keep and don't smell anywhere near what the crickets do.

I give them a homemade dry gutload mix using (listed randomly, not in order of quantity):
rice baby food
non-fat dry powdered milk
wheat germ
flaxseed meal
bee pollen

I also feed them:
carrots
bananas
broccoli

Occasionally:
hard cooked egg yolk
(rarely) potatoes

My question is: Is it possible that these well-fed roaches provide plenty of nutrition to my chameleon without offering him other insects?

I raise mealworms, which I occasionally/rarely give him. And I seldom have crickets. In the summertime he gets a wide array of insects. So, my concern is mostly his diet for the winter time.

My guy seems to be satisfied with the roaches!

I figure he's getting more nutrition than chitin (shell) ratio by eating roaches. My roaches are an orange-head hybrid. And I feed them when they are around 1" in size.

Is there any scientific data showing benefits of varying the insect?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts...
Dena

 

[mdrossncsu]

If you're like me you thought the information in the links Dave posted was great, however; you can't retain it from one site to the next .

I'd actually started trying to collect information on feeders and put it all in one place for easy comparison/look up before I found this thread. Now that I know at least one other person is interested I'll share what I've got so far.

This is in no way definitive or complete. Sometimes the same category may be listed twice, only in different units of measurement (PPM as opposed to %).


hxxp://www.phish3r.com/feederinfo2.htm


ps: it does have some fiber info for a few of the feeders. I haven't found it for the others.

pps: DMPanther, the PDF file Dave linked has nutrition information for gutloaded crickets compared to regular old run of the mill crickets. Maybe you could note the difference and extrapolate that to your roaches? I don't know how different insects metabolize foods so I'm not sure how accurate a comparison that would be.