pooping after phoenix worms

[Embee]

My phoenix worm order arrived yesterday, I bought 400 medium PW from Phoenixworms.com
Bill, my juvie seems excited with the worm. This morning I put 15 PW on a small dish and within couple mins Bill was on the floor of the viv.... looking around, but not eating the PW yet.
I usually put her salad bowl in the morning before going to work(she sleeps on the log), she even too lazy to open her eyes when I do that.

I came home just few minutes ago and saw that all of PW is gone... she ate them all!!! Wow she really likes it. Hopefully she wont poop the whole worm tomorrow (fingers crossed).

Sounds like your beardie and mine have a mutual LOVE of the PWs. :mrgreen: If there is a worm in the poop, try not to worry. Sometimes at first they get pretty excited, and gulp them down quickly, and this will happen. They mellow after time. For us, it happened once for a whole worm, a second time, a partial worm came out and since, all poop good. And she eats mostly PWs, as her staple.

About the quantity, how much should I give Bill PW per day if I only feed him that (no crix) and salad? -- Bill is 11 inches long, I usually give her a bowl of salad in the morning, and feed her crickets for dinner (I know she should eat more often, but mommy has to work :? to buy those expensive crix and worms)

Well, the same rule applies, as many as she will eat in 10 minutes or so. It sounds like you have to leave after you leave the food, so this could be tricky. Our dragon can eat anywhere from 10-20 in a sitting (and seemingly more every day... she's small so this is a good thing!). I feed crx first, and she'll eat possibly 7-10, and then go on to hoover her worms. :mrgreen:

I heard that some of Beardie slave here pinch the PW beforehand, so it will be easier to digest. How long the PW will live after that? It will die, right?

Have not found this at all necessary. In fact, I'm quite sure my dragon would have nothing to do with them if they weren't moving...

and my last question is: How long PW will live? how to take care of them, should I feed them? if yes, what do they eat?

This is the best part of PWs. No care and feeding... just keep in their container at 60-70 degrees (a bit cooler and they'll last even longer, but no fridge). We recently made our second order of 400. We finished the first order in about one months time, all feeders still looking good to the last one... a few dead overall, but not many. Also, if there are dark/black ones in the container, and they are still alive and moving, do go ahead and feed them to your dragon as they have the most calcium. If they're dead, toss 'em. :wink:

Here is a link for more information: http://www.phoenixworm.com/servlet/the-template/faq/Page

Hope this helps!

Em

P.S. if you look further back in this thread you'll find a post by DrPhoenix... of pw.com. VERY informative, and helpful. We ordered our first order from Mulberry, but our second from pw.com (not sure which you used). PW got them here in a few days, priority mail, and waived the shipping. My kind of worm vendor.

 

[erdeem]

It has been a few days I give Bill Phoenix Worms. She seems to love them. About the poop, on the first she eat them I saw some half PW in her poop (I checked :lol: )... But I haven't see that again since yesterday... hopefully I can give PW as a staple, I hate crix!

 

[Embee]

It has been a few days I give Bill Phoenix Worms. She seems to love them. About the poop, on the first she eat them I saw some half PW in her poop (I checked :lol: )... But I haven't see that again since yesterday... hopefully I can give PW as a staple, I hate crix!

Looks like you're off to a good start then. I hear ya on the crix. We still feed them, but they are now just the "appetizer" for the real meal. :mrgreen:

 

[Embee]

Thought I'd check in and update the thread here, as we've begun to have some problems.

After two, three months of feeding PWs with only the VERY occasional worm in poop, we seem to be experiencing an onslaught of undigested worms, much like Chad described in his original post here on the thread. Over the weeks and months, Cloudy has been doing VERY well with the worms, and in general (has grown 3 inches in the last 6-7 weeks and is now 9 inches :mrgreen: ). We have slowly brought back crickets and she is liking those again as well (one PW meal/one cricket meal per day). We had been able to feed her up to 35-40 PWs at a time, and she was doing just fine with them, digesting, normal poop, and save for the occasional worm getting down without being chewed, no problems to speak of for many weeks now.

Over the last several days however, she has had more and more PWs in her poop, 2, 3, 4... but I didn't worry, I just figured I was giving her too many at once. So, yesterday for the afternoon meal, I fed her just two a time, nice and slow and again, she appeared to chew them (42 in all). However, this morning she pooped twice and the worms were more numerous than ever, both poops were littered with them, most were whole. *sigh*

Her appetite has increased tremendously in recent weeks (thanks to the changes we made to her enclosure, she is finally eating the amounts she should be). I watch her eat and it appears that she chews most (if not all) of the worms? I am still feeding her mediums and so I do wonder if perhaps switching to the large might help... of course, I JUST received 1000 mediums for pw.com. :roll: Add to that, our last batch had quite a few smaller worms in it, which is unusual.

At any rate, thought I'd throw that out there. We are feeding only crickets today to give her a digestive break, but I'm reticent to lose the PWs as I feel their nutritional and microbial benefits are really important, especially considering that her other staple are the hoppers who tend to abound with parasites. I'm planning on feeding her some PWs tomorrow am and I will continue to feed a few at a time, and perhaps pierce them? I hate to do it though, she counts on them being VERY wiggly so we'll try a few and see how it goes off I suppose. We're also not going to handle her much today to make sure she gets some extra basking time, but frankly, I can't see how that would be an issue. When not with us (two, maybe three times a day for 20-30 or so minutes at most), she is in her viv basking the day away, temps are spot on, UVB excellent (7 week old T-Rex MVB).

:dontknow:

Thanks for reading...

Em

 

[beardie osk]

Sorry Embee, that your having such a hard time with the PW's, my Bella had the same problem, but I've found that if I feed them one at a time, she chews them better, and I only see a few in her bm's.
The larger Pw's are not that much bigger and are more at the end of their life cycle, still very good, but if your keeping them for a while, maybe medium is your best bet. Have you ever thought of using them in a slurry? Of course, you do get into the possible hand-feeding syndrome, where they become very spoiled. I did that with mini mealworms :bleick: and froze the slurry to last.
I haven't done the pin pricking thing with them, you'll have to let us know how that goes.
Bugs and wishes,
Christine <><

 

[Embee]

Sorry Embee, that your having such a hard time with the PW's, my Bella had the same problem, but I've found that if I feed them one at a time, she chews them better, and I only see a few in her bm's.
The larger Pw's are not that much bigger and are more at the end of their life cycle, still very good, but if your keeping them for a while, maybe medium is your best bet. Have you ever thought of using them in a slurry? Of course, you do get into the possible hand-feeding syndrome, where they become very spoiled. I did that with mini mealworms :bleick: and froze the slurry to last.
I haven't done the pin pricking thing with them, you'll have to let us know how that goes.
Bugs and wishes,
Christine <><

Thanks Christine!

Indeed, the reason I've stuck with the mediums is because they last longer. However, her appetite has grown so much over recent weeks (thank you T-Rex MVB! :mrgreen: ) that we're going through them at a pretty good clip anymore, so the end of lifespan issue probably wouldn't be too much of a problem. Maybe I'll go for large next time around and see what happens. For now, I've still got a 1000 or so mediums, so I'll do what I can to make them work. I'll be sure and check in here as to our worm progress. :wink:

 

[erdeem]

Until today, Billie (my Beardie) has no problem in digesting PW. There are some undigested PW in her poop, but only a small number. Today, I was spending some quality time with her. I let her lying on my chest. Suddenly she started her wiggly moves and I realized that she was about to poop. I put her quickly on the floor (I have learn a hard way about "want to poop" sign). She pooped, and it was a mess!.... I think most of the poop was undigested/whole phoenix worms! What a nightmare. The last time I feed him PW was yesterday morning.
I think I will go easy on feeding her PW for a little while....

 

[Embee]

Until today, Billie (my Beardie) has no problem in digesting PW. There are some undigested PW in her poop, but only a small number. Today, I was spending some quality time with her. I let her lying on my chest. Suddenly she started her wiggly moves and I realized that she was about to poop. I put her quickly on the floor (I have learn a hard way about "want to poop" sign). She pooped, and it was a mess!.... I think most of the poop was undigested/whole phoenix worms! What a nightmare. The last time I feed him PW was yesterday morning.
I think I will go easy on feeding her PW for a little while....

Yikes, I hear ya! Glad you were able to get her to the floor in time! I have noticed the worm poops are much more "urgent" than normal ones. :shock:

For us, we took two full days off of PWs and fed crickets only. Yesterday morning we reintroduced the PWs. I realized that we had gotten off our normal routine of PWs in the am, and crickets in the pm... had been reversing it due to being out of the house in the afternoon (PWs are much easier to leave in a tidy dish when we have to leave). I think getting out of her routine may have had something to do with the digestive issues.

At any rate, we decided to try to feed them as normal (not pierce them) and see how it would go. I placed them in a dish with lots of mustard greens so that she'd have to pick through and take her time. This am, she had a normal poop, right on schedule, so we seem to be on the mend, and back to our usual routine. I'll keep ya'll posted as to the progress of things. And hey, she managed to actually eat some greens the last two mornings... but that's a whole other thread. :roll:

The best,
Em

 

[beardie osk]

I know it must be frustrating, I have found that I have to feed my girl the worms one at a time, which I know is time consuming, but it allows her to chew each one, instead of one big "gooble", not so many whole ones in the BM that way.

Sorry for repeating myself, it just works better for us. 8)

 

[erdeem]

Billie poop bunch of whole PW again this afternoon. It was weird, since the last time I feed her PW was on Sunday. She poops regularly (1 or 2 times a day). I just surprised why she still pooped PW. :shock:

 

[Embee]

Billie poop bunch of whole PW again this afternoon. It was weird, since the last time I feed her PW was on Sunday. She poops regularly (1 or 2 times a day). I just surprised why she still pooped PW. :shock:

We stopped PWs for 2 whole days, and she still had a little bundle in her poop on the afternoon of the second day?! It sounds like your situation is perhaps more than that however. How are your temps doing? We actually found ours were running a little low because I'd moved up the lamp on a warm day, and hadn't moved it back down. There were still above 100, but on the low side there. They're back at 105-110 now, but I'm keeping a close eye on them as the weather is changing an awful lot here these days and it really effects the room temp where she is. I think something just got very off with her feeding/digestive routine... something... took awhile to get those buggers out. I can't imagine how it happens just boom like that, after weeks/months of digesting the properly.

I hope she's able to get onto "right track" soon. Indeed, it can be very frustrating. *sigh*

Our girl is on her second day back on with PWs, and still all is looking ok, but I'm still on the lookout.

The best,
Em

 

[rin0425]

I just bought 600 for my 2 juvies...reading this thread has gotten me nervous that there ill be poop issues...well see...i hope this isnt as big of a problem as it seems on here...ill let you know if it is!
Aaron

 

[erdeem]

I just bought 600 for my 2 juvies...reading this thread has gotten me nervous that there ill be poop issues...well see...i hope this isnt as big of a problem as it seems on here...ill let you know if it is!
Aaron

Don't worry.. not every dragon will have problem with PW. Billie loves her PW, she has been eating those for a couple months, but lately she has trouble digesting them, so I have to stop the PW for a while. Luckily she still loves her crix and started to eat greens.
So... don't worry, PW is good but you have to pay attention whether your scaley puppy digest the PW well. Good luck!

 

[Embee]

I just bought 600 for my 2 juvies...reading this thread has gotten me nervous that there ill be poop issues...well see...i hope this isnt as big of a problem as it seems on here...ill let you know if it is!
Aaron

Don't worry.. not every dragon will have problem with PW. Billie loves her PW, she has been eating those for a couple months, but lately she has trouble digesting them, so I have to stop the PW for a while. Luckily she still loves her crix and started to eat greens.
So... don't worry, PW is good but you have to pay attention whether your scaley puppy digest the PW well. Good luck!

Indeed, most beardies do just fine with them and some, like mine, just have the occasional problem. PWs are excellent feeders, full of calcium, good fat/protein ratio and as Dr. Phoenix mentioned natural lauric acid which gives them antimicrobial qualities for combatting coccidia. Our other staple feeder is crickets, so I find the PWs very important in balancing out the hoppers as they tend to be the worst offenders of parasites.

We had a bit of a problem a couple of weeks ago, but since reintroducing PWs, beardie has been doing wonderfully with them again. I found this thread to be actually quite helpful, informative and reassuring when we were getting ready to feed PWs, because when she did poop out a worm, I knew was what going on and didn't panic. The words of "Dr. Phoenix" were quite reassuring. To reiterate:

Hi Folks,
Our email service has been down all morning and we can barely use the Internet right now but we saw this thread and wanted to reply to Chad and others who are concerned about this issue. Of the many thousands of animals who have been fed Phoenix Worms, we occasionally hear about finding worms in the feces. Usually this occurs when PWs are first introduced and the beardie is particularly excited and sort of gobbles down mouthfuls of worms without chewing--easier to do with PWs because they're smaller than other worms. A simple solution is to serve only a small number of worms at a time to slow down the feeding. Another solution is "pinning" which is what frog hobbyists do to feed live prey because frogs typically do not chew--hobbyists pierce the worm with a needle before serving which ensures that the digestive juices can do their job. Breeders tell us that they consider this to be an occasional occurrence but not a problem. They liken it to humans who sometimes find kernels of corn in the toilet bowl which does not mean that corn is a bad food.

We are concerned that a vet advised to stop feeding PWs to a dragon who needs a boost in nutrition. Unlike other feeders, the calcium and phosphorus are perfectly balanced in these worms and PWs contain natural lauric acid which has strong antimicrobial properties and combats coccidia. These worms also trigger a feeding response in animals who are off feed. We have received many email reports telling us about how PWs saved the life of a dying pet or healed MBD. It's clear that animals are obtaining additional nutrition from PWs since their health often improves. We hope that fear about the occasional passage of a whole worm will not prevent you from allowing your pet to enjoy the nutritional benefits of Phoenix Worms.

Craig Sheppard, Ph.D.
President, Insect Science Resource
Professor Emeritus, UGA
http://www.phoenixworm.com

Best of luck with PWs, and rest assured MANY people here on the forum feed them to their dragons, but only a few of us ended up here. :wink:

Em

 

[ErinMeetsMachine]

I really want to order PW's, but I've been so spoiled by my free shipping of crickets that it's hard for me to pay $20 for pw's and then nearly another $10-20 for shipping... Maybe they'll have them at the reptile show this upcoming weekend.