What will eat woodlouse? and how do you keep/ breed them?
Just about all the amphibians I have ever worked with relish woodlice (AKAK sowbugs, pill bugs, roly-polies, etc...).
They are easy, but slow to culture. I use the biggest size Sterilite tub they carry at Target. I line the bottom with wet, crumpled up, unprinted news print. Over top of this I put about an inch of lawnmower trimmings from my yard. Then I add about 6 inches of loose leaf litter. I throw in a few pieces of soft, mostly decayed punk wood too.
To get the culture started, I collect as many woodlice I can find of all sizes using pitfall traps and a lot of log/rock flipping. I add these to the culture box, snap the lid in place and stick it in my basement where I forget about it for a few weeks. (Every so often I check to make sure it is damp in the box, and mist it with spring water.) Do not be surprised if you end up with a good culture of springtails too!
Other than that, there really isn't much to culturing them. To harvest them I put a dab of peanut butter on the inside of a damp toilet tissue roll. I let that sit in the culture over night. Next day at feeding time I carefully remove the tube and gently shake it out in my critter enclosure. Once every few months I stir in a few fresh hand fulls of lawnmower trimmings.
Watching FrogTV because it is better when someone else has to maintain the enclosure!
thanks but do you need to drill ventilation in the tupperware?
Woodlice breath through gills. There a closer relative of marine life then terrestrial forms. I think they actually class as a crustacean.
Woodlouse - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Breather holes might not be necessary. If your worried take a section out of the top of your Tupperware with a dremel or a hole saw and cover it with Fine gauze.
What is punk wood?
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