Dried mealworms/waxworms

[Gate]

First post from a newbie! I have been putting out dried mealworms and waxworms for the birds in my (London) garden for a while now, and they definitely go for them big time (particularly the blackbirds and robins and great tits, and waxworms especially). If I can work up the nerve, I'll try the live ones. But what I wanted to know was whether the dried worms are OK when the birds are raising chicks. I had read that they don't have enough moisture. Would it be OK to pre-soak them - or would that just be a waste of time, or worse?

[IanF]

Hi Gate,

On behalf of Admin and the Moderators I'd like to welcome you to Bird Forum :t:

Good question to start of with and I really don't know the answer. I have only ever tried the live ones and the birds adore them too. I'm sure someone will be along who will be able to help.

See you around.

[Elizabeth Bigg]

Hi Gate, and welcome to the Forum. We've been using live mealworms for years now, breeding our own, though supply doesn't keep up with demand so we buy them as well. I can understand your concern about using dried ones in the breeding season, and I wouldn't use them myself, but that's just a gut feeling rather than a scientific decision. If you can't get an answer here, how about ringing or emailing the BTO or the RSPB?

I've read that parent birds know what is right for their chicks, but I don't believe this - last year (which I understand was not a good year for bluetits) we noticed that our bluetits were taking dry porridge oats into the nestboxes. I stopped putting these out because I could not believe that these were good for chicks in the nest, with only their food to provide moisture for them.

[edrick owl]

Hi Gate, and Elizabeth.

This touches on something I have been thinking about, as I am wondering what to put out this breeding season (which will be the first one I will be really making a concious effort for).

I have started to look at the possibilities of waxworms etc, and have thought as an alternative about the humble fishing maggot. A couple of years ago, I was constantly pestered by a very noisy, untimidated male Chaffinch, which would take the handfull of maggots I threw for him, then return and call for more. This went on for the best part of a very long afternoon.

That got me thinking, as maggots are very cheap, and for those who do not know, there are various sizes and names - pinkies, squats, bloodworms, jokers etc. Could these be used for different young? Has anyone any thoughts or comments on this?

As a further alternative, around seven years ago, my son very successfully bred and showed canaries. Part of the breeding season ritual consisted of filling an ordinary plastic kitchen sieve with mixed millets, then placing it in a bowl filled to the brim with water. Very occasionally churn it about, and change the water every couple of days. This got the seed opening and growing shoots. After about 7 to 10 days, it was really ripe, and ready for the birds. The parents would take this before anything else, and feed it constantly to their young.

In addition to the seed itself, the young nutritious shoots, they also got the very important moisture they need. He often could not keep the supply up with the demand. Once again, has anyone got any comments on this.

Finally, last year I did put out chopped tinned catfood for the birds on a wooden board. The Blackbirds especially went daft for this, and it is one ploy I may well use again this year.

Sorry it's a bit long, but I hope it gives people ideas, and maybe stimulates a bit of debate and a few other ideas. :h?:

[Elizabeth Bigg]

I can't remember where I read it, but I have heard that maggots are definitely not suitable for feeding to birds.

[edrick owl]

Hi Elizabeth

That's fine by me. I will not be feeding them any maggots in my garden.

I will contemplate the waxworms. By the way, what's the format for breeding them yourself? I would be interested to hear what is involved, and the pro's and cons of buying in or breeding your own.

Thanks,

[Joanne]

Not sure if this is true but i have heard that maggots will eat the bird chick inside if still alive when feed.

[Gate]

Not sure if this is true but i have heard that maggots will eat the bird chick inside if still alive when feed.

I had read that myself, but it was in the context of the "supersize" worms (Morios?) which are so big and vigorous that if a bird is small or weakened by illness, say, they may be troublesome if fed alive because they will not die before doing some damage. There was a suggestion that because maggots feed on rotting meat rather than being vegetarians like mealworms or waxworms, they might cause the same problem, but that seemed to be rejected on the basis that they aren't big enough. I think there might be a problem with salmonella or similar with maggots, though, depending what they were raised on.

[Elizabeth Bigg]

Hi Elizabeth

That's fine by me. I will not be feeding them any maggots in my garden.

I will contemplate the waxworms. By the way, what's the format for breeding them yourself? I would be interested to hear what is involved, and the pro's and cons of buying in or breeding your own.

Thanks,

We followed the instructions in Chris Mead's book "Robins". The RSPB have a factsheet , but it seems to make it very complicated, though has some useful tips.

Buying in is expensive, breeding takes time, and as I mentioned supply cannot keep up with demand, especially when there are hungry chicks to be fed - unless you go in for it on a much larger scale than we do. (We have 3 buckets in the utility room, with mealworms at various stages).

[jeff]

Not too sure what they were called but i remember reading in one of my fishing mags a while back about using bran and milk to breed flies, these were great for Bream fishing.
I guess these maggots would be Ok for feeding to the birds?
If your interested i'll dig out the recipe.

[jeff]

Not too sure what they were called but i remember reading in one of my fishing mags a while back about using bran and milk to breed flies, these were great for Bream fishing.
I guess these maggots would be Ok for feeding to the birds?
If your interested i'll dig out the recipe.

Found this on some site, it's how to breed maggots something similar to what i mentioned above, this guy also feeds them to aviary birds, so looks like it's ok?
Also how to breed mealworm

http://members.optusnet.com.au/~burdz/other.html

[edrick owl]

Thanks Jeff and to everyone else.

I had thought since, that perhaps one of the contributing factors may be that a great deal of the maggots are dyed. Could this dye be of a harmful nature?

Who knows, but I guess the best way is just not to feed them all. With a little care and thought, there are plenty of alternatives.

edrick

[Anthony Morton]

Feeding maggots to wild birds should present no problems providing you follow a few simple rules.

Maggots used for fishing have stopped feeding and are ready to turn into the crysalis stage, which is delayed by refrigeration.

Pinkies offer better value because they are smaller than 'normal' maggots and so you get more for your money. This also makes them easier for birds to feed to their young. Average cost is around £2.00 - £2.50 per pint. Squatts are even smaller but are usually more expensive (£5.00 per pint) and often difficult to buy.

Avoid ALL maggots which have been dyed to give them an artificial colour. Pinkies get their name from a natural pink tinge, they are not artificially coloured.

Bloodworms and Jokers are far too expensive to contemplate feeding to birds.

Buy a ventilated plastic bait-box larger than required so that bran can be added for the maggots to crawl through to clean themselves of any residual traces of the meat source they were fed on. The box can be thoroughly washed after use.

Fresh maggots have a visible black food sac under their skin. Over a period of time (usually a week at most) this will be absorbed and the maggots are then in an ideal state to use as live food. Alternatively buy 'old' maggots if possible.

Keep maggots in a cool place to delay them turning into crysalis, although if they do you can still feed them to the birds. Providing you have a good seal on your bait-box (and a very understanding partner!) it is quite safe to keep them in the bottom of the fridge in hot weather.

When feeding maggots to the birds, put them into a shallow container they can't escape from, otherwise they will quickly disappear because they do not like daylight.

Hope this helps!

[esmondb]

Feeding maggots to wild birds should present no problems providing you follow a few simple rules.



How can you guarantee the maggots aren't carrying anything harmful/fatal to the birds, such as botulism?

[Anthony Morton]

QUOTE = esmondb

How can you guarantee the maggots aren't carrying anything harmful/fatal to the birds, such as botulism?[/QUOTE]


I can guarantee nothing. However common sense suggests that it is most unlikely anglers would be allowed to use maggots if there was any risk of what you are suggesting - particularly since water is abstracted for drinking purposes from many of our rivers.

I believe from his posting No. 10 on today's 'Hundreds of birds culled on lake' thread that perhaps Joern Lehmhus would be able to provide the answer and I will ask him.

[Joern Lehmhus]

Hi all,
Anthony asked me to help out;hoever I am not sure if I can.
I am no expert on botulism , but had to do with botulism sometimes and therefore read some scientific literature abot botulism outbreaks and epidemics.
Maggots are much less sensitive to the botulism toxin than any vertebrates (as for example birds). The bacterium clostridium botulinum can occur in rotting carcasses of animals that died of botulism, if there are anaerobic areas (=areas without oxygen) in the carcass. Maggots in the carcass can ingest the toxin there and become toxic to birds.

However, this seems unlikely in maggots that are produced for bait or bird food. They are normally kept more airy ( at least in the maggot rearings I have seen)so I don´t think much botulism risk comes from there. That is my personal thinking but I cannot give a definite absolution.

On the other hand, I would like to ask, what about Salmonellas? Although they are probably also not common, they are in my opinion much more likely to occur in a maggot rearing than Clostridium botulinum and they also can be harmfull to birds.

And what about the aflatoxins that can occur in any seeds due to the activity of Aspergillus moulds (even if you don´t see them, they are often there)?


Jörn

[Anthony Morton]

Many thanks for your prompt help, Joern. I have also found a website

http://www.mag-it.co.uk

part of which reads:- 'Left with some maggots after a days fishing...? Don't despair, the humble maggot can still be used as food for any pet that can eat an insect of that size.'

I believe this indicates that commercially produced natural-coloured maggots can be used as a safe and fairly inexpensive form of live food for birds.

[esmondb]

From the sadly deceased Chris Mead of BTO, in reply to a question on why maggots from an angling shop should not be fed to birds:
"Yes there is a good reasom for not feeding maggots. They have fed on
meat and the mealworms and insect larvae most birds feed on most of
the time feed on vegetation - leaves for caterpillars in the wild and
meal ('flour') for the mealworms. A diet of subbstantial numbers of
maggots will cause problems with most species."

If there was ever anyone's advice on birds that I would take without asking for references, it was his.

[esmondb]

As to why:
"I am not sure but I think it is to do with the amino acids and
proteins which are not the ones they are adapted for. There are very
real differences. Bacterial infection is also very likely - gives
them the trots."

From Google archive (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&th=ae0c652221b335c6&seekm=2000062109304770039%40zetnet.co.uk&frame=off)

[Elizabeth Bigg]

Thanks for passing on Chris Mead's verdict on this - I quite agree with your following statement. I once sent him an email, because the behaviour or our nesting pair of bluetits was very strange and rather worrying - he replied promptly, with a very sound explanation of what he reckoned was going on. I was really grateful for his words of wisdom.

[Gate]

Well, in the end, after a bit more asking around, no-one seemed to be able to come up with a reason why I shouldn't try pre-soaking some dried mealies as an experiment, so I did. They plumped up pretty quickly and looked pretty gross (pretty much like live ones, I suppose), and I put them out in a plastic dish when the blackbirds were around and retired with the pocket binos to watch. Immediate hit! The bolder of the male blackies which visits our garden came down inside a minute, looked at the contents of the saucer, and did that thing you get with budgies where their eyes suddenly go bright and beady, then took a worm, then another, and another. A robin joined in a while later. I checked an hour or so on, and all the worms were gone. All the birds are back today and look pretty chipper, so I shall go for it again.

By the way, has anyone out there ever mail-ordered live mealworms? I'd like to know how they arrive (what sort of packing, etc.) before I give more thought to ordering some.

[Elizabeth Bigg]

By the way, has anyone out there ever mail-ordered live mealworms? I'd like to know how they arrive (what sort of packing, etc.) before I give more thought to ordering some.

We always get ours by mail order - they arrive in a plastic container (with tiny holes in the lid) with a small amount of bran in the box with them. We get minis from: http://www.livefoodsdirect.co.uk/ (because we have had consistently good quality here), and we buy the regular size from: http://www.monkfieldnutrition.co.uk/

[walt-m]

We always get ours by mail order - they arrive in a plastic container (with tiny holes in the lid) with a small amount of bran in the box with them. We get minis from: http://www.livefoodsdirect.co.uk/ (because we have had consistently good quality here), and we buy the regular size from: http://www.monkfieldnutrition.co.uk/
;)

Hi Elizabeth I have just twigged on to you & malc your buying in cheep
and then supplying C J'S by the contianer load. Ha Ha. walt-m

[walt-m]

First post from a newbie! I have been putting out dried mealworms and waxworms for the birds in my (London) garden for a while now, and they definitely go for them big time (particularly the blackbirds and robins and great tits, and waxworms especially). If I can work up the nerve, I'll try the live ones. But what I wanted to know was whether the dried worms are OK when the birds are raising chicks. I had read that they don't have enough moisture. Would it be OK to pre-soak them - or would that just be a waste of time, or worse?
:clap:

Hello Gate welcome to the forum I have tryed the dried mealworm with
alot of success at one time i did have a robin who fed from my hand last
year, but i have not seen him for quite some time now so i think he found
someone with fresh picking's. all the best. walt-m

[sumbody]

I have a problem in that I have been feeding live mealworms since last year, I have a resident and quite tame Robin and mate plus one of last year's babies and his mate who live at the bottom end of the garden - and they will not eat the dried mealworms and will fly away until I put some live ones in. Spoilt I know - not even the tits are eating the dried ones now - although the blackbirds soon polish them off so nothing is going to waste. Have even seen the squirrels eating the dried ones too !!! Costing me a fortune (£2.20 from pet shop) - and if they were not so wriggly, I would really have a go at breeding them (cannot bring myself to actually touch them yet 8-P )

At this time of year when I am re-potting my plants I am also feeding any weevil grubs I find and the birds love them. Cannot find anything about this on the net - but have been doing it for years now - I actually save the earth from last year's Busy Lizzie pots because I know there will be vine weevil grubs in them for spring feeding and as they feed on vegetative material (i.e. roots) I am hoping that they are safe for the birds to eat - although there are never any left by the time the babies are here. What do you think?