Woodlice: Ok food?

E

elizabeth

Guest
I have three C.O. and off and on I sometimes give them a nice treat of earthworm from my yard. It is, of course, pesticide free. As I was hunting, I noticed by whole yard had a amazing abundance of beetles of woodlice. I dont think black beetles are a good food for newts, so I wont try those, but I was wondering if woodlice would be an ok treat now and then?
 
I feed woodlice to my newts regularly. There are many different kinds of woodlice though. I tend to avoid feeding the ones I call "razor blades".

The ones I feed are domed instead of flat with the bottom of their carapace pointing down rather than sideways.

I don't have any pictures of woodlice yet (I should take some) but here is an example of what I call a razor blade:
http://www.geocities.com/millipedes_uk/Woodlice/oniscus_asellus.jpg

Here a picture of one I'd feed to my newts:
http://www.earthlife.net/insects/images/animals/woodlc3a.jpg

Another thing to consider are slugs, the smaller light grey ones for example do quite well as protein snack
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Are the ones that roll up ok too?
Also, I have other things in my yard including those slugs you just mentioned, centipedes (very small ones) mealworms, small, black beetles, spiders and earwigs. I have a feeling though that beetles and earwigs wont be good, but correct me if I'm wrong. =3
 
centipedes, ants etc contain poison. I stick with slugs and those roll up woodlice are perfect.
 
Actually the domed ones that can roll up are not woodlice at all, infact they're even from a different family. They're pill bugs, Armadillidium vulgare, commonly called rolley polleys. They tend to like dryer places than woodlouse, which seem to be what you call razor blades, and can roll up into a ball. I actually prefer to feed "razor blades" over rollies because rollies are more heavilly plated.

Elizabeth, if those beetles that you're talking about are black ground beetles, which they sound like, I wouldn't feed them either, those guys are big and also have big jaws.
 
you can buy small tropical white woodlice, they are very good because they are more fleshy, and smaller.
 
Yea I didn't think the beetles were good food either. Thank you all for the pictures and advice, so now I can give my newts a more variety of treats. =)
 
Actually, several families make up the "woodlice" group. This includes pill bugs. In the netherlands alone there are 37 different species/subspecies of woodlice and that's not counting the ones living in water.

My description of garden critters is done from a newt feeding point of view.. hence razor blades which translates to "might cause internal injuries". Slugs I usually think of as (slow moving)protein packages
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The tropical white woodlice you can buy in stores are very nice, but a bit small for adult newts. Also, I don't think you can get woodlice more fresh than straight from a garden
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(Message edited by ester on June 11, 2005)
 
Interestingly enough, 'woodlice' are crustaceans. Even the ones that live on land.
 
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