Live pet food

For many exotic reptiles and amphibians, live food is the basis of the diet, and for birds and rodents it usually becomesaddition to the diet, sometimes it is simply replaced with a hard-boiled egg. When we say "alive", we do not mean that it is fed in a living form (this is not always the case), but that living organisms are used as food.

Live food includes:

• 
  the simplest organisms (rotifers, infusoria, euglena);
• 
  crustaceans (Daphnia, Artemia, Cyclops, etc.);
• 
  worms (earthworms, tubules, nematodes, etc.);
• 
  insects and their larvae (bloodworm, coretra, mosquitoes, flies, crickets, fruit flies, large dairy hruschak);
• 
  shellfish;
• 
  fry and small fish;
• 
  rodents (mice, rats, rabbits);
• 
  birds (chickens, pigeons).

It is clear that very fewowners of exotic pets have to face live food in the form of mice or rats - the percentage of people who live at home snakes or alligators, is quite small. And here crustaceans, worms and insects even owners of fish, birds and hamsters.

Before buying your pet live food, be sure to consult with a veterinarian or consultant at a pet store and find out, what kind of live food can be given to your animal, in what quantities and in what form. For example, many animals are very fond of flour worms (larvae of flour flour mushrooms). But if you do not follow the rules of feeding, such a live food can harm your pet.

For example, some lizards and turtlesswallow whole food. In this case, the larva enters their stomach still alive and there is a risk that with its powerful jaws it will damage the internal organs of your pet. Therefore, if your lizard or tortoise does not crush the food with jaws before ingestion, you must crush the head of a flour worm before feeding and give it to the animal with tweezers.

A To decorative birds of a flour worm it is possible to give only in the form of delicacies: in the larvae of floury Khrushchev contains a lot of fat, so when used in large quantities, they can cause obesity in birds.

Buy live pet food preferably in pet stores. When choosing a feed, make sure that it hasnormal color without a dull, dull, unnatural shade. Worms, crayfish should be clean, free of dirt, peat, twigs, other insects and larvae. Live food can be sold in live, dried or frozen form. Some types of live food can be cultivated at home, but usually it is quite a labor-consuming occupation.

Self-trapping live food is best not to do: there is a risk that, along with his own handcaught by you, for example, a pipeman your pet will get the pathogens of some dangerous disease. Before consumption, live food is often disinfected in a special way (for example, several days stand in water, repeatedly replacing it) to reduce the risk of infectious diseases or parasites.

Store live food in appropriate conditions, you can learn from the seller. If the food is not frozen or dried, namely live, buy it better in small portions, but often.

Live food - an integral part of the diet of many pets. That your pet is always healthy andactive, you need to buy him only a quality live food and give it as often and in the quantities that are recommended for the animal that you keep.