# Can beardies eat mealworm beetle?



## Joshuashaw (Apr 27, 2008)

As the title says, I have a couple of boxes where they have gone through the full process of maturing to adult where they are black beetle, can a beardie eat it if they find an interest, I am going to put it in a deep dish if need be, cba with those little things runnin around viv and getting into gaps. Thanks, J.


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## Reptilover (Jan 15, 2007)

I've fed mine them before.. but he much prefers morio worms..


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## kizza (Feb 18, 2009)

NEVER feed beardies normal mealworms only morio worms because mini ones have something in them called chittin which they cant digest and causes a blockage which stops them pooing

thanks

kizza:2thumb:


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## Reptilover (Jan 15, 2007)

kizza said:


> NEVER feed beardies normal mealworms only morio worms because mini ones have something in them called chittin which they cant digest and causes a blockage which stops them pooing
> 
> thanks
> 
> kizza:2thumb:


Thats just over rated.. Mealworms are fine for bearded dragons aslong as you feed other stuff aswlel. Similer to us.. if we ate pasta all the time imagine what would happen :gasp: As long as you dont feed too much they will be fine. 

Morio worms also have some Chutchin in them.. but not asmuch..


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## fran2491 (Oct 10, 2008)

mine have had them before and they are fine,i also agree the whole chatin thing is a load of :censor: its all in the poo for me that is the easyest way to see if they can digest them,one of my girls has probs digesting mealies so she doesnt get them but all my other reps do with no probs:flrt:


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## Joshuashaw (Apr 27, 2008)

Anyway don't the large ones have a chemical to make them so big, the morio worms? As naturally I don't think there that big.


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## maddragon29 (Oct 16, 2008)

kizza said:


> NEVER feed beardies normal mealworms only morio worms because mini ones have something in them called chittin which they cant digest and causes a blockage which stops them pooing
> 
> thanks
> 
> kizza:2thumb:


If you are talking about "Chitin" then thats found in most arthropod exoskeletons.... and insects are a group of arthropods.
by that reasoning you shouldn't feed them crickets or locust either...

Maybe the smaller ones have a higher ratio of it to body size or something.. ? but i think its found in most arthropods.


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## HadesDragons (Jun 30, 2007)

Mealworms do have a fairly high proportion of chitin in them. I personally advise never feeding mealworms to beardies - by the time their digestive system is large enough that there is no risk of a blockage being caused by mealworm shells, they are large enough for morio worms. The shells are all-but indigestible; if you feed a young beardie a few mealworms, you'll usually see a lot of mealworm in its poo the next day. A few shouldn't hurt, but too many could cause a potentially fatal build up. Remember that when they're small they can go downhill very fast, and treatment is much harder than for larger animals.

Morio worms are a different species to mealworms (_Zophobas morio_ as opposed to _Tenbrio molitor_). You *can* get worms which looks like morio worms but which are just mealworms which have been given hormones to make them grow much larger. As far as I'm aware they aren't really sold over here, it's mainly in the US. I'd be very wary of using them, just incase the hormones can have some effect on a beardie in the long term.

The beetles should be fine as long as they've been fed well and are gutloaded - _P. barbata_ (a different specie but very similar to the common bearded dragons) has been observed to eat a large number of beetles in the wild. A lot of the fat content of a mealworm / morioworm is used up during the metamorphosis into a bettle, so they have a much lower fat content as beetles.


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