Nutritional Value of Maggots.

[Jace]

I have just discovered that the store where I buy my large earthworms from also have maggots. Just wondering if anyone else uses maggots as a food source for their frogs, toads or geckos? Do they have any nutritional value, or are they more like superworms and wax worms to be used as an occassional treat only?

I am looking more at them as something for my geckos and fire-bellied toads as they are small and squishy!

Thanks.

[Tom Highum]

I don't know maggots can carrying things like myiasis you can get that i dont know about herps i know mammals can. i think and you don't want a large infestation of flies. Just my opinion though i have no idea about nutritional value.

[John]

Tom, please use punctuation (full stops/periods at the end of sentences), and use capital letters at the beginning of new sentences. Your message is very difficult to read.

[Kurt]

There is a maggot that is commercially availible for herp food. It is marketed under the name of pheonix worm. They are the larva of a robber or soldier fly. Something like that. I let one mature once and the fly lloked more like a wasp.
These maggots are high in calcium.

[John]

These maggots are high in calcium.

And expensive and non-trivial to culture.

[Jace]

Okay, thanks for the thoughts. I wasn't too keen on trying the maggots anyway, but I assumed since they were brought in they would be free of parasites. However, I doubt if they can guarantee that, and I wouldn't want to take the risk. If they had received a good review from the folks on the Forum I would have braved them-now I don't have to!!

[Kurt]

Every time I used phoenix worms, my frogs regurgitated them.

[Tom Highum]

I am sorry about the punctuation and spelling. This is interesting i have never tried them i might just have too.

[Jace]

I think I might try them as well. Depending on the price I can get them for, they might be another "treat". I've looked them up, and they appear much more appealing than regular fly larvae. They kind of remind me of butterworms in a way. Thanks for the suggestion-we'll see if there is any frog upchuck as a result!

[Tom Highum]

Hmm they sound like a great source of calcium for my lizards.