Anyone know of wholesale feeder suppliers for small bulk crayfish? I've been trying to vary up the diet for our turtles. The LPS seem to not carry ghost shrimp with any regularity and I refuse to pay the price they ask for crayfish (used for display and not as a feeder).
Feeder items, particularly for turtles
- Thread starter Chris_LCMNH
- Start date
I only wish it were that easy. I live out in New Mexico, crayfish are introduced here, but I know of no local places to easily collect them. Plus I'd have concerns about contamination; of course I also have to have those concerns even from a captive source. That and I don't think the City would view this (collecting feeders) as part of my job duties. Unfortunately, local pet store options don't offer much of varied food items.
try to breed them I know a couple of my friends that actually had pairs of crayfish breed for them. They have A LOT of babies.
What species of turtle are you feeding? Wild caught crayfish can transmit parasites and disease to most water turtles. I would avoid them and just feed frozen shrimp and freeze-dried shrimp.
Vicious_Fish;1779293; said:
Exact reason for my contamination worries!
Feeding a pair of TX spiny softshells, 13 lbs common snapper, 2 large female RES, and an adult female western painted turtle...They all live with the common snapper and are missing feet, tails, shell sections.....joking.
Softshells live individually as female attacked the crap out of the male a couple years back while I was out of town. The RES and painted live together and the snapper is alone, getting his rocks off on his rocks (he needs a gf BAD, but no room).
2-3 years ago I stopped feeding LPS feeder fish (rosies and gold fish) due to the softshells getting tapeworm. Since treatment and eliminating the live fish from diet they've been tapeworm free. Other turtles never showed signs of tapeworm and never tested positive in the limited fecals I got. Unfortunately, I've now, and since then, gone nuts trying to locate alternative options to fleshy food items other than Reptomin, fuzzie mice, tubifex worms, and the munching of anachris and assorted friuts and veggies.
Why are you so desperate for feeders? Just buy bulk bags of frozen cocktail shrimp. Safe, cheap, easy to feed, and should be readily available. The only advantage of feeding live that I can see is the stimulation for the turtles, but I'd still stick with shrimp instead of live.
Paul
Paul