Feeding WC large moths

[TANK]

I occasionally feed my toad large moths that get in the house.
Is there any downside to this besides pesticides?
What im mostly worried about is parasites.

[Niels D]

I'm also offering my animals moths and other invertibrates I come across in house and garden. My neighbours and I don't use any pesticides though. Wild caught food items are really nutricious. Here in The Netherlands we've got very few poisonous wild animals, so I can give my animals almost everything that I find roaming around the house, except bees, wasps and such.

[steest]

Ahh, generally it is not accepted to use wc food items. I am in no way saying what you should or should not do. They are your frogs, and you may do with them as you wish. Would I feed wc items? No. Simply because the risk of pesticides and other chemicals is too great. Frogs kept in captivity generally do not have as good immune systems as wild frogs. Wc food to a wc frog i'm sure is ok. Not sure if your toads are wc or not???

[ViperJr]

Parasites is also a concern when feeding with wild caught insects. I do not feed with anything from the wild, because it's an unneeded risk. It might be ok most of the time, but it just takes one bad insect to create a dissaster. If you want to feed with moths from time to time, you could culture wax worms.

[Niels D]

I won't deny that there's a risk of getting parasites, so I won't advice people to offer wc food items. I just believe that an healthy animal shouldn't have any problems with an occasional wc food item, but that's of course my opinion.

[ViperJr]

I won't deny that there's a risk of getting parasites, so I won't advice people to offer wc food items. I just believe that an healthy animal shouldn't have any problems with an occasional wc food item, but that's of course my opinion.

You have a point. However, I personally feel that "shouldn't have a problem" is not enough.
There's probably as many different opinions on this as there are frog owners, which is good, as long as the decision of the frog owner is an educated opinion.

[Chaser]

I agree Martin! It could cause extreme issues.

[JeffreH]

This is going to be unnecesarily long - and anytime I use "you" I'm being completely hypothetical. Not directing anything at anyone. Everyone is entitled to their opinions on the matter and nothing anyone says is going to sway everyone one way or the other. Here are my personal thoughts on WC prey as a whole:

I have mixed opinions on feeding Wild Caught anything... firstly, does anyone have some hard evidence that suggests that wild caught insects are truly more nutritious? This is a serious question, I'm not asking to be an ****. I've not come across anything that has actually done a nutritional analysis of WC by Captive bred insects on varying diets.

The following are primary reasons why people feed WC typically:
1) Variety
2) Free and abundant
3) More nutritious? Is this a rumor or fact?

The following are reasons people tend to avoid them:
1) Hazardous insects/ inability to differentiate harmful from safe species
2) Pesticides/ Herbicides and other harmful chemicals the bug may have come into contact with
3) Parasites

The first reason for feeding WC is great - variety is the key for any non-specific feeder. You miss out on other micronutrients and trace elements obtainable from other feeder insects, both from the insect itself and from what this insect is consuming. For example, Silkworms only feed on mulberry or mulberry chow...not only are you picking things up from the insect itself, you are getting goodies from the partially digested mulberry remains in the gut...same is true for grain product gutload and variety of salad items fed to roaches, crickets, mealworms, zophobas... WC prey may have a wider variety of food to nibble on, but a lot of them are also very specific feeders. Most moth and butterfly larvae feed specifically on certain types of plants (most species of moth do not feed, they're purpose is reproduction). To say they are nutritionally superior to all of the other common captive feeders seems silly to me [opinion]; species we have now originated from the wild - did they lose nutritional composition from culturing? If you provide a good quality gutload, varieties of quality salad items, etc you can create very nutritious meals for herps.

The second reason - this concerns me. We shouldn't be trying to take shortcuts, if you base your animal's feeding regime on the fact that you can save some cash then you should reconsider housing this animal. These are pets that rely on us to survive, if you can't afford to feed it then don't buy it. This is NOT directed at anyone on this thread, I've known someone who purchased an Anole strickly on the basis that they thought they could provide for it by feeding WC food. Come winter, they couldn't find anything to feed and the animal died because this person didn't want to spend a couple bucks on feeder insects from the store. End Rant... thats a story that has always disgusted me. I digress...

Some things people fail to realize the area that some insects can cover over the course of a few days. Moths can travel several square miles of area, along with grasshoppers and other flying invertebrates. There is simply no telling where the heck that insect has been prior to feeding to your herp. For example, my lawn and garden is treated with nothing, nor are my immediate neighbors. But about 0.5mi down the road there is a large corn field, along with many other houses that have gardens. Are they using nasty "cides"? I have no clue, so I'm not going to feed insects that nibble on these things to my herps.

Also - there are toxic plants that herps should never eat indirectly such as tomato plant, pepper plant, and tobacco. I've seen grasshoppers feeding on my pepper plants..whether or not they die is another story, but I'm not going to feed something that may have nibbled on something toxic to my animal.

As for parasites - this is just a risk we have to live with. Most parasitic organisms are extremely specific (often species specific)...that doesn't mean a parasite not meant to infect a reptile or amphibian won't harm him once consumed though. It's impossible to tell if a bug you catch outside has an overload of pathogens, some parasite, or fed on that pile of dog poo. But parasites aren't something limited to wild feeders; there are plenty of commerical feeder insects that are carrying nasty stuff in them that we are blatantly unaware of. Those crickets from the pet store can carry nasty stuff too...

My honest opinion is this : if you can be 100% confident in the species you are collecting to be fed and there is zero doubt in your mind that it has not come into contact with anything nasty, then by all means feed it. It's harder and harder to find locations to collect from in the states IMO - we feel obligated to throw chemicals on anything and everything. WC bugs can add variety to the diet...I prefer to feed my herps food that I KNOW is 100% safe and cultured by me. I also opt to rear almost every species of feeder insect to give as much variety as possible. I think the animals enjoy some variety, and its healthy for them to mix things up from time to time.

But moths specifically - they don't (well, generally don't) feed on anything. Odds of them consuming something bad as a larvae that is still in the system by adulthood isn't that significant IMO. Now, whether or not the moth has come into contact with something nasty during its flight to the capture sight is another story. It's all the unknown, a risk that one has to personally weight out for themself. I just prefer to feed things I've cultured - and thats my humble opinion.

In addition to waxmoths from wax worms, you can feed silkmoths reared up from silkworms (Bombyx mori)... although these moths are flightless and honestly the laraval worms are going to be significantly more substantial and nutritionally beneficial meals since this is the feeding cycle and growth cycle of the moth = )