Isopodium News: Feeding Time!

Some pictures of my Chocolate Zebras and Oreo Crumbles eating some isopod food. The food is a fine powder of all kinds of plants, cellulose, calcium, freeze-dried veggies, and freeze-dried protein from mealworms and fish.

The isopods mainly eat decomposing leaves and wood that is mixed into and on top of their substrate (the soil), but they will eat many other things and enjoy extra calcium for building their shells, as well as protein boosts and treats like fresh cucumber, carrots, and squash. 

My isobabes usually get fed something extra two to three times a week. Really large isopod colonies with 1000 or more members can eat a lot of supplemental food every day, which is why so many people use isopods as part of the cleanup crew in their enclosures for snakes, lizards, and hermit crabs. My Gma Terry has hermit crabs and when I have a large enough colony of one of my isobabe species, I am going to see if she wants me to mail her some for her hermit crab enclosure. 

Cleanup crews can be made up of isopods and springtails like I have, but they can also include millipedes, which I want to get to put in my vivariums, and certain species of predatory mites. All of these critters eat decaying matter, poop, and leftover food people feed to their snakes and lizards like cockroaches and mice!

Here is a little bit more about cleanup crews (not a product endorsement).

[1-2/4 Chocolate Zebra isopods eating powdered food. 3-4/4 Dairy Cow isopods eating powdered food.]