Gut loading is
not like going to a fish meeting in the San Francisco Bay Area (where we live) and chowing
down on Pizza (is seems that the majority of the fish groups meet in the meetings rooms
within pizza parlors)...Gut Loading and Dusting are serious methods of delivery that may
be a valuable tool for you to use with your critters.
The worm groups
(Grindals, whiteworms and redworms) can all be fed alternative foods just prior to feeding
the worms to your fish. The old adage, you are what you eat is extremely applicable with
worms. The challenge is what to feed and when to feed it. The worms have a relatively
short and very straight gut which also means that whatever they eat does not stay there
very long. The nutritional benefit of continually feeding vitamins or other enriched
formulas to the worms would be highly questionable as they, like all organisms, will
convert the vitamins (etc.) into normal body tissue. The conversion of food to tissue is
not very efficient...and on a large scale the poor conversion is expensive.
So what would
you want to feed the worms to give the recipient critters a boost? The easiest thing to
feed is enriched fish foods. Any of the dry powered foods will be eaten by the worms.
Simply sprinkle the food on the medium and spray with a little water to moisten the food.
For some fish, algae and other plant material is a necessary part of their diet...in that
case, spirulina flakes can be used. For most fish, any of the vitamin fortified or
enriched foods would be a good choice. Some folks swear by cat food pellets as a good
source of food. You might check on the nutritional supplements on the cat food bag, but
some of these foods would undoubtedly container enriched material. You might also consult
with your cat...ours for example is fat...the food is good.
Some of the
cultures don't eat food sprinkled on the top of the soil like the worms do. In the case of
microworms, you can feed them on enriched oatmeal. The benefit of that would be in some
sort of question since there have been no studies done on the subject and no material
written to support the effort. The same can be said for most of the cultures. We don't
know the answers. However, we have observed the growth rate of most of these critters and
based upon our observations over the years seriously doubt if the food eaten today is
within the microworms or vinegar eels that resides in the medium tomorrow. There are some
cultures that may not benefit from Gut Loading and which also can not be Dusted with any
sort of reliability.
However...the
flies and beetles groups can also be used to carry additional nutritional material to the
critters which you intend to feed them to. The flies and beetles can not be gut loaded as
with the worms, but rather you can dust them with various powdered compounds just prior to
feeding to your critters. This method of delivery has long been used by herp enthusiasts
when feeding their frogs and such. Again, any of the powdered vitamins or foods (powdered,
not simply finely ground) can be sprinkled on the flies, beetles, crickets and mealworms
just before feeding them to the critters. It's a little bit of trouble, but sometimes you
need to go to the extra effort. Calcium and vitamin suppliments are the two primarly
dusting components...both sorely lacking in most foods. Without dusting, some foods will
not provide the basic nutritional elements required to metabolize proteins, fats and
carbohydrates properly.
"We grow food not
bait"
