Quote Originally Posted by skips View Post
From explanations that people have used with me, it's mainly calcium that people dust with. For example, I fed my dart frogs fruit flies which which subsist mainly on potato flakes which are low in calcium. I would expect wild bugs to have a much more diverse diet. Bugs dont need nearly the calcium (although important for many intracellular processes...they dont have bones to maintain) that frogs would. It is pretty undisputed that at least, say, dart frogs (which can be very sensitive) need good dusting on their flies. Otherwise they can grow deformed or more commonly be prone to involuntary spasms leading to death. Usually people dust due to the homogeny of diet they feed to their feeders. If you're getting your bugs from outside I would consider them already to be "gut loaded." Others would be better equipped to comment on that, but that's my inexpert two cents. Your species of frog may be fine, other, more sensitive species, may well not.

As for the enterobacteria...do dung beetles require dung for reproduction? If so, they will have come into contact with feces. If it came from a mammal, the feces will contain E. Coli, E. Fecaelis, etc. If not, maybe salmonella or some other completely natural bacteria which inhabit animal guts. These bacteria can live outside the body for a long time and I wonder (I really couldnt say either way) if they get carried or eliminated on the beetles carapace. Amphibian skin is sensitive and I really have no idea what the dynamics of amphibian skin coming into contact with fecal colliforms would be like. I'm not saying definitively that this would cause problems, just that its something to think about.
Well that's a lot of food for thought Jabba hasn't got any thing wrong that I have seen so I think Jabba will be fine although I can't really see Jabba as my frogs have gone into hibernation so Jabba is somewhere under the leaf litter and I don't want to disturb them.