Crayfish as food

[Ra]

Im curious how difficult or easy the shell would be for their digestive systems to handle and what kind of minerals make up the shell.

[GrifTheGreat]

Im curious how difficult or easy the shell would be for their digestive systems to handle and what kind of minerals make up the shell.

It is similar to the exoskeleton of other arthropods and insects. Its a form of chitin and unlike other small inverts is too well developed for the frog to digest. It would not break down. This is a much thicker stronger armor than that of say roaches and far more developed than that of the Mealworm and even they can cause a serious impaction if Fed too often, but it would only take one Crayfish to do the job.

[Ra]

Crustaceans are not the same thing as anthropods and their shells generally do not contain the same chitins. Isopods for instance, are land dwelling crustaceans the exoskeleton of which consists mostly of calcium. I have seen video of a Horned Fropg eating a crayfish and I have heard of them being fed as part of a varied diet to Horned frogs, Budgetts Frogs and Pyxie Frogs alike without any mention of a problem.

[Maharg]

That would be excellent cause my crayfish isnt looking well and I dont want it to suffer any more haha

[KingCam]

I know american bullfrogs eat crawdad frequently in nature, so it could work I suppose.

I have never owned a pacman, but from everything I've heard they are a very sensistive species. I personally would just be scared to try it unless the crawdad was freshly molted and still squishy. They should still have lots of calcium in them, it just hasn't hardened into a shell at that point.

...you could always drop the crawdad in a pot of boiling water and eat it with butter That sounds like a joke, but it's actually not LOL! Many a pet crawdad has turned into food in my house.

[MatthewM1]

...you could always drop the crawdad in a pot of boiling water and eat it with butter That sounds like a joke, but it's actually not LOL! Many a pet crawdad has turned into food in my house.

Deep fried crawfish bites are also pretty darn tastey