Supplemental feeding with superworms

[detioh11]

Hello Everyone,

I have one ASY pair again this year with 5 babies, and a couple SY males hanging around daily. My birds showed up during an ice storms, and I was able to train them to supplemental feed after 3 days of freezing temps. I have continued to feed them all summer. They lost most of their interest during incubation time, but once the eggs hatched they were sqwuaking and flying low over my head every time they saw me wanting some food. I have been feeding a lot of crickets and some mealworms. Without knowing it I started buying superworms instead of meal worms. I just thought they were really big meal worms. The birds seem to love them, and the nestlings look very fat and healthy. I was reading however that they are higher in fat than crickets and meal worms. Is it OK to feed martins superworms on an ongoing basis? I have just been rotating back and forth between crickets and superworms. The adults carry them right into the gourd. I can't believe how much the babies can eat. I do freeze them and rethaw so they can't bite.

Thanks
Dennis

[Doug Martin - PA]

Dennis,

Sounds like you are doing a great job with your birds. Since you are in Michigan supplemental feeding will be a big part of maintaining a colony.

You are also correct in your concern over feeding too much fat content to the Martins. You are also asking a question that is difficult to answer as most Martins landlords in this country don't have to feed them continuously and much of this is yet to be established.

I supplemental feed my birds all season as well when needed. I am having excellent success with water soaked "standard freeze dried mealworms". At first they were not so hot on them.... but now they are absolutely well accepted by them and are gobbled down quickly from a feeding tray. I bought an 11 pound bag this year for around 50 dollars. This is a HUGE bag of mealworms. I have not seen any ill effects of feeding these to the Martins. (OR freeze dried gut loaded crickets) Unlike scrambled egg that really gives them and their babies the runs from fat. So that is an indication they are getting a fat that can not be digested. Remember there are many different types of fats. Insect fat may digest better than fat from an oil or from egg.

So I am not sure how many superworms they are eating or the cost you are experiencing but the sooner you can convert them over to eating soaked standard freeze dried mealworms from a bed and breakfast the better in my opinion. Also to be noted is the use of cool water to soak them. I believe cool water is best. Hot water will hydrate them faster but this is also how you extract nutrient. Thus many extracts or teas are made with hot water. The last thing you want to do is extract the nutrition and dump it out in the water prior to feeding.

As long as the standard freeze dried mealworms have been soaked well I don't have to cringe watching them take them to their young. So far so good here for a few years with them.

Hope this helps some. Good job.

Doug

[KathyF]

Doug, when our long lost bird rehabber, Penny Casey-Halstead was helping out a lot on these forums, she addressed the topic of freeze-dried mealworms and said they are zero nutritional value once they are freeze-dried and very, very difficult to rehydrate. So, in my opinion, they may offer some 'fiber' and filling for the martins, but probably not a good thing to offer long-term.
I just ordered 1,000 Zophobas from Rainbow Mealworms for $12 and have them available for all my jumpers. Thankfully, food is not a problem here for the parents.

[detioh11]

Thank you for your replies. Kathy, does that mean that any insect that is frozen has no value? I have been buying crickets and super worms and putting them in the freezer and using as needed. I have gone through way more than I thought I would but it is so fun to feed them!!! I have been thawing them in hot water so I will start to use cool water.

[Doug Martin - PA]

Hi Kathy.

Perhaps she was referring to their role in rehabilitation of a sick or dying bird. There would be much better sources of nutrition for that. But for sustaining health mealworms may be perfectly fine.

If they have no nutritional value then I am not sure what is keeping all our Martins alive and healthy up here for weeks at a time with no flying insects. I am not the only one feeding them either. I have not lost any birds to starvation so something is keeping them alive when they are eating them.

The process of freeze drying is used for a lot of pet and human foods. It seems to do a very good job of retaining nutrition. I have fed tropical fish freeze dried food as well with good success for many years. Not sure why a mealworm would be any different to freeze dry vs any other insect or worm.

Penny was indeed a great help to us all.

Doug

[pmlover]

where do you get the superworms and is that what you google

[Doug Martin - PA]

Zophobas are Superworms from what I understand. So you could google that.

They are a bit larger and fatter than a typical mealworm. I used to buy them live as well. Just don't let them sneak out into your house.

By the way there are about 16,000 freeze dried mealworms in one pound. So we went though about 160,000 mealworms so far this year here. Live ones would have cost over 1600.00 dollars. So there is excellent value to the freeze dried.

[detioh11]

I had been getting super worms (zoophobas) at a local pet store. I originally thought they were just big meal worms. I ordered more from flukers which is when I realized they were not meal worms. Flukers seems to be a good place to get crickets and meal worms etc. they arrive live. If you order large quantities it dilutes the shipping cost. I have gone through probably 4000 crickets just for 3 birds this spring and the pair that wound up staying.

[KathyF]

Thank you for your replies. Kathy, does that mean that any insect that is frozen has no value? I have been buying crickets and super worms and putting them in the freezer and using as needed. I have gone through way more than I thought I would but it is so fun to feed them!!! I have been thawing them in hot water so I will start to use cool water.

No, she was talking about "freeze-dried" only. She has recently passed away due to cancer, so I'm unable to followup with her. I freeze crickets & worms too & offer them.

[KathyF]

I just tried out this place last week, and I'm thrilled with them. Not only were their zophobas cheaper than other places, (I order 1000), but you can get cheaper options for shipping. So, I spent around $25 for them, and the other sites I would have spent almost $50.

http://www.rainbowmealworms.net/

[KathyF]

where do you get the superworms and is that what you google

PMlover, - here is a direct link to the ones I get: http://www.rainbowmealworms.net/superworms/

[KathyF]

Hi Kathy.

Perhaps she was referring to their role in rehabilitation of a sick or dying bird. There would be much better sources of nutrition for that. But for sustaining health mealworms may be perfectly fine.

If they have no nutritional value then I am not sure what is keeping all our Martins alive and healthy up here for weeks at a time with no flying insects. I am not the only one feeding them either. I have not lost any birds to starvation so something is keeping them alive when they are eating them.

The process of freeze drying is used for a lot of pet and human foods. It seems to do a very good job of retaining nutrition. I have fed tropical fish freeze dried food as well with good success for many years. Not sure why a mealworm would be any different to freeze dry vs any other insect or worm.

Penny was indeed a great help to us all.

Doug

Doug, yeah, I am only the messenger on this one and sharing one of the bits of information I learned from Penny. Sadly, she passed away, and I can't follow up.

[KathyF]

I just did a quick search and here's one post by Penny mentioning the dried mealworms:


https://www.purplemartin.org/forum/view ... =mealworms

[KathyF]

Boy, reading through Penny's old posts sure bring back some memories. I miss her...

Another one about using frozen crickets / mealworms - just don't try to keep them for years & years.
https://www.purplemartin.org/forum/view ... =mealworms

[Doug Martin - PA]

Years ago when I started my colony I was looking for the ultimate way to supplemental feed Martins. I took the time to research this topic because I also took on a few birds from outside colonies that had gone down to the ground during cold spells. We did find a somewhat local bird rehabber that I also spent some time with. Both rehabbers including Penny seemed to mirror each other.

The one thing I learned above all is that there is a big difference between rehabbing a bird and supplemental feeding them. You really need to keep them healthy enough and avoid the rehab process. Maintaining health is much easier than rehabbing it. Once a Martin goes down and loses it's ability to fly it is very difficult to bring it back to health. I know first hand on this with the help of experienced rehabbers. So my main goal is to just keep them healthy and flying.

I have progressed through all the different foods in supplemental feeding. Live insects, scrambled eggs. cat food, beef heart, to name a few. Every year I must keep my colony alive. It is both time consuming and expensive to feed fifty to a hundred birds (and sometimes young) for days and weeks and I have now progressed to bulk freeze dried mealworms and gut loaded crickets as a viable source of nutrition and protein to supplement them during bad weather. So far I have not seen any negative effects from it. But the verdict is still out.

Kathy's research and bringing up these old strings is helpful. It brings back something I forgot about which is the use of Vionate that contains all the key vitamins and mineral animals and birds need. Perhaps the rehydrating of mealworms with this product added is an ideal supplement. When you soak dried mealworms properly you can pick one up squeeze it and a drop or two of water comes out of it. So they will indeed fill with the Vionate liquid. To me this would seem perfect.