Nutritional Value of Meal Worms and Maggots

For all your questions about diet and food for your finches
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Boma
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I breed both meal worms and maggots. They are given the same food to eat and are fed to finches. Just wondering if anyone knows whether there is any nutritional difference between meal worms and maggots?
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arthur
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The generally accepted wisdom among 'gun' breeders seems to be that maggots are superior to mealworms . . and that termites are better again

Perhaps someone can back this up with scientific analysis
STUART WHITING
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arthur wrote: 24 Oct 2017, 13:20 The generally accepted wisdom among 'gun' breeders seems to be that maggots are superior to mealworms . . and that termites are better again

Perhaps someone can back this up with scientific analysis
I'm very much inclined to agree here, yes there are protein levels in meal worms but maggots are obviously nutritional aswell,

I'll now personally never use meal worms no more as even the mini meal worms to me are a waist of time and money, they are often still quite hard with their ex skeleton carcass and have often found birds actually struggle when trying to feed these to youngsters, the normal size meal worms that many people use to me are even worse still,

I fear that the head of the meal worm could also bite into the crop of young birds once been fed, this has proven to be the case over the years when using mealworms, maybe not a lot but I certainly wouldn't wanna take the risk, some breeders nip the heads of the meal worms but I stil wouldn't wanna risk it,

Nowadays I predominantly only ever use maggots and fruit fly for me softbills :thumbup:
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Craig52
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There is a small amount of protein difference with meal worms having slightly more, but in saying that more maggots, skin and all can be consumed compared to meal worms.
Most finches do not eat meal worms whole,the treat them like a tube of toothpaste starting from the tail end after the head has been bitten off and run them through their bill. Extra small meal worms are killed and swallowed whole but they are regurgitated whole to the young so the young need to break them down to get any goodness out of them.
Most waxbills just bite the heads off large mealworms and chuck the body, cordons are a good example of doing this but if you run parrot finches with them they will clean them up.
A good mixed variety of live food is the best way to go though i only feed maggots and my crimsons do well on them and a good supply of seeding grass heads. Craig
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Boma
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I was thinking that the nutritional value of maggots and meal worms would be the same if they are fed the same food. If that is the case, I was going to stop breeding meal worms and just stick to breeding maggots as they are easier. However, I take your point Craig, that there may be some advantage in giving finches a variety of live food.
STUART WHITING
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Craig52 wrote: 24 Oct 2017, 17:00 There is a small amount of protein difference with meal worms having slightly more, but in saying that more maggots, skin and all can be consumed compared to meal worms.
Most finches do not eat meal worms whole,the treat them like a tube of toothpaste starting from the tail end after the head has been bitten off and run them through their bill. Extra small meal worms are killed and swallowed whole but they are regurgitated whole to the young so the young need to break them down to get any goodness out of them.
Most waxbills just bite the heads off large mealworms and chuck the body, cordons are a good example of doing this but if you run parrot finches with them they will clean them up.
A good mixed variety of live food is the best way to go though i only feed maggots and my crimsons do well on them and a good supply of seeding grass heads. Craig
Well said Craig :thumbup:
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starman
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This article includes a simple analysis of popular live foods.

http://www.finchinfo.com/diet/mealworms_live_foods.php
Sm.
Avid student of Estrildids in aviculture.
STUART WHITING
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Boma wrote: 24 Oct 2017, 17:14 I was thinking that the nutritional value of maggots and meal worms would be the same if they are fed the same food. If that is the case, I was going to stop breeding meal worms and just stick to breeding maggots as they are easier. However, I take your point Craig, that there may be some advantage in giving finches a variety of live food.
Personally I'd ditch the use of meal worms as I often find that they are way over rated, I'd stick with the maggots and as you rightly say are actually far easier to keep, initially I'd also use fruit fly, I believe you'd call em vinegar flies as these are also taken on a regular basis when breeding and feeding youngsters,

I don't bother with em but many are now also using tiny crickets and these might be worth considering aswell as a bit of variety,

Be lucky
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shnapper20
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i feed my maggots banana as suggested in an article in just finches, this gutloads the maggots with all the nutrition bananas supply.
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Craig52
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shnapper20 wrote: 24 Oct 2017, 18:10 i feed my maggots banana as suggested in an article in just finches, this gutloads the maggots with all the nutrition bananas supply.
Imo the only nutrition banana's supply would be calcium, potassium,sugars and moisture. Others gut feed their mealworms dry dog foods which includes a lot of calcium,minerals and vitamins.
I heard of others feeding dry finch soft foods whilst others feed chicken/turkey starter but they all supply moisture in the way of a carrot, just enough to last a day or two as too much moisture attracts pink fluffy mite. Craig
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